Triangulation
by Gibson 1959 Les Paul
Summary: Set just post-timeskip. Robin and Nami are Best Friends. Robin loves Luffy. Nami loves Luffy. Luffy loves meat. Problems ensue. (I've always shipped Nami x Luffy. But I also really like shipping Robin x Luffy. So this is me having my cake and eating it too) Essentially a harem fic that I attempted to make somewhat believable. Will have mature scenes.
1. Chapter 1 - Dreams and Whispers

**Author Preface: ** This is the first (and extremely long-winded) chapter of what is vaguely conceived of as a romantic drama about a love-triangle between Luffy, Robin, and Nami. Because I find both of these pairings adorable but also dislike stories where a lover is scorned, I decided to imagine the scenario behind which a hypothetical harem scenario might take place involving both female Straw Hats.

However, I also didn't want it to be quite as implausible as typical harem fics, wherein I feel like authors tend to have OoC versions of characters leaping into bed with each other without earning any of the emotional investment that I think would be a necessary part of making the story seem credible. This is my attempt to address that problem, while perhaps erring a little too strongly on the opposite, over-written side of the spectrum. A lot of focus on the characters' internal dialogue and thoughts.

Starts very recently post time-skip. The first chapter is from Robin's perspective, as she ruminates about her feelings for Luffy and then eventually confronts him about them. This chapter is very G-rated, but will be followed by naughtier (M-rated) passages later on. Later chapters will be from Luffy and Nami's PoV. I also hope to eventually trim some of the fat here (of which there is a lot, redundancy of phrasing, repeated information, etc) but for now, this is what sort of poured out of me, minimally edited, while running on sleepless holiday free-time and excess caffeine.

* * *

_Nico Robin felt her breath escape her as a strong, wiry arm encircled her waist and lifted her off the ground. In one swift motion, it heaved her whole frame effortlessly over its owner's shoulder._

"_Yosh. Lets get out of here."_

_She could hardly believe this boy. Direly wounded, with walls of stone collapsing imminently around him, would he still waste his breath saving her? She could understand why he had lassoed the falsely accused Alabastan King beneath his other arm, but her? His defeated enemy?_

"_Wait!" Her throat ached as she protested._

"_I have no reason to live any longer! Please… just leave me here!"_

_The desperation in her voice sounded strange to her own ears. She had felt this despair only once before, as a little girl, while watching the life frozen from the eyes of her first and only friend, his sacrifice sparing her from the raining fire she had watched consume the only place she had ever called home and the only family she had ever known. _

_In the twenty years since, the woman that had remained, robbed of innocence, fugitive of the entire world, had had only her great dream – first aspired to as a child, then forged by these flames of disillusionment into a solemn vow – with which to weather a world of darkness. Two decades spent crawling through the underbelly of society, dodging the inexorable grope of the law. Two decades of friendlessness, fear, guile, and betrayal, with nothing to light her path but a single, unwavering ambition. _

_Looking back on a life plagued with decisions so morally dubious that she often wondered whether she deserved her infamous moniker, the Demon Child of Ohara realized that there had long been nothing left to redeem her but the promise that she might one day realize this dream. And now, even this had been stolen from her. _

_The cryptic etchings of the Pluton Poneglyph had revealed no clues as to the True History, only a path to further destruction. Her associates were ruined, her resources depleted, her last lead exhausted. She could go no further and could not turn back. And she was tired. Tired enough to welcome the crushing embrace of her collapsing tomb. _

_She felt her captor move, waited for him to put her down, bracing instinctively for the impact with the stone floor. Instead, he merely shifted her weight on his shoulder and grumbled dismissively._

"_Why the hell should I listen to you?" He asked and without another word bolted off down the crumbling hallway, leaving his unwilling passenger speechless._

* * *

Robin woke with a start, heart racing from the freshness of the nightmare memory.

_Again? _She took a deep breath and held it a moment, waiting for her pulse to settle and the lingering dream-emotions to recede.

Glancing at the empty bed to her left, she saw that her roommate was still on her night watch shift. She exhaled slowly. The cabin was silent but for her own hushed breathing and the wooden creak of the Sunny's gentle undulation upon the waves.

She'd been reliving that memory almost every night for a week now, ever since the long awaited reunion of her family. It had been two years, but the Straw Hat Crew was finally reassembled. She had looked forward to being reunited with her _nakama_ every day they'd been apart. She was sure they all had.

But, with the joy and exhilaration of her homecoming had also come dreams of the past events that had brought her to this point. And of the young man who had been at the center of it all. It seemed as if her subconscious was still wrestling with some personal doubt – a quiet, itch of a question that she couldn't ask aloud.

She lay in a tangle of twisted sheets, staring up at the wood-paneled ceiling of her room aboard the Thousand Sunny, as a silky moonlight filtered through the small cabin windows to her right, stretching strange shadows across the bed. Soon another memory drifted out of the silence and into her awareness, one that always followed the first:

* * *

"_Monkey D. Luffy. You didn't think I'd just forget what you did to me..." Said Robin, leveling a cryptic smile at the young pirate while she casually helped herself to one of their ship's folding seats. Her nonchalance was at odds with his crew, who had been caught completely off guard by their recent enemy's unannounced appearance aboard the Merry Go after departing the harbors of Alubarna. She watched them turn their alarmed expressions from her to their captain. _

"_Oi! Luffy, you bastard! What the hell did you do to this poor mellorine?!" demanded the sharp-dressed, curly-browed Straw Hat, seizing his bewildered leader angrily by the lapels._

"_Hey! Don't lie! I didn't do anything to you." Luffy protested, ignoring his cook's insubordination._

"_Yes you did. You did something terrible to me." She accused again. "Now you have to take responsibility." _

_She carried on as if oblivious to the rest of the crew's various states of confused panic; the long-nosed, megaphone-wielding boy rolling around on the deck, an orange-headed teenage girl crouched defensively behind a railing, the green-haired swordsman with his hand hovering over his hilt, and a small raccoon-like creature clinging to the mast. _

"_I don't know what you're talking about. What do you want, anyway?" He asked, annoyed._

_She gave him a cool stare for a moment before bluntly replying, "Let me join your crew." _

"_EH!?" The Straw Hats collective response to her audacious request seemed only to amuse the beautiful and mysterious interloper._

"_Back then…" She explained, proceeding to recount the story of their last encounter within the within crumbling walls of Alubarna's royal tomb._

"_You saved me when all I wanted was to die." Explained the raven-haired archaeologist. "That is your crime. I have nowhere else to go now, unless you take me in. So… will you let me join you or not?"_

_The logic seemed to fall into place in Luffy's head, and he nodded with understanding. _

"_Oh. So that's it. Guess there's no helping it. Okay. You can stay." Answered her new captain, without so much as blinking. _

"_LUFFY!" chorused the crew._

_But as all but one (Sanji) of his friends voiced their outrage at their leader's haphazard decision making, he only grinned._

"_Shihihihi! Don't worry!" He assured them with a laugh. "She's not a bad person!"_

* * *

Robin smiled to herself as she recalled her unceremonious induction into the Straw Hat crew. She hadn't known then, what a fateful decision she had made when she had asked to join such a gang of misfits. She was sure Luffy hadn't been aware either, while deciding on a whim to take her aboard, how much he would be changing her life forever. And how much he would come to mean to her over the next few years.

But that was how it always was with Luffy. He was like a whirlwind, a demigod of fortune, his every erratic turn of course or impetuous action upturning the lives of those he encountered, the repercussions of his most whimsical impulses ushering storms of devastating change and dangerous hope into the fates of the individuals, towns, cities, and even whole nations that crossed his path. It defied sense that such a scrawny, grinning, goofball of a teenage miscreant could also be a tornadic force of nature, pulling those he met into his orbit, carving destructive paths through the dead ends of their destinies, and breathing new life into the dying embers of their broken dreams; and just like a force of nature, accomplishing all of this as a mere side effect of his indomitable personality, he himself scarcely aware of the glorious scars he was leaving behind in the souls of those he touched.

_She's not a bad person._

He was the first person, since her childhood branding as an outlaw, to have said this about her. But despite what he thought, she knew that in truth, it was those words themselves, and his confidence in them, that had redeemed her. The unhesitating faith he had placed in her character, his insistently proffered hand of friendship, had pulled her out of the pits of her amorality, recasting her in his image.

Because he and his crew had believed she deserved to exist, she had been able to as well. Because they had come to trust her, even when she been unable to trust herself, accepted her and reached out to her even as she had betrayed and disowned them, she had been empowered with the choice to love and be loved, rather than resign herself to self-prescribed loneliness.

Luffy had given her the chance to be the _nakama_ he had already seen in her, and in doing so he had taught her how to be this person. Not a tragic heroine, or a dark burden dragging down those dearest to her, but a cherished companion, well loved and irreplaceable, whose friendship was worth the enmity of the entire world.

She found herself struggling with a sudden wave of raw emotion. The memory flared in her mind, of how her captain and his crew had chased her right up to the gates of the world's end to confront her during the height of her despair:

* * *

_Robin gazed with wide-eyed disbelief from the balconies high upon the Tower of Justice, across the deep, waterfall-ringed span separating the mainland of Enies Lobby. The narrow figure of her former captain stood far below, at the other edge of the chasm, staring fiercely up at her like some fearless hero out of a dream she had not dared to imagine. _

"_ROBIN!" He bellowed up at her, in a voice that echoed across the aisle and rattled in her bones. "DON'T DIE!"_

_She felt herself tremble, as she tried desperately to cling to the last of her resolve. _

Why had he come? _She asked herself yet again. _Why wouldn't he listen to her? Why couldn't he understand that she wasn't worth risking his life for?

"_I don't know what you're going on about! But listen, Robin!" He continued. "We already came all the way here." _

_Behind him, the rooftop upon which he stood suddenly erupted in a spiraling skyward explosion, whisking with it a screaming Nami and Chopper high into the air. But Luffy carried on without so much as a backward glance._

"_So we're just going to save you anyway. If you want to die after that, then you can. But not till after we save you." _

_The handcuffed Robin was speechless. Below her, the two newly appeared Straw Hats landed with varying displays of grace, and were joined moments later by a green-haired swordsman who climbed out of the gaping hole he had just created. Barely a few seconds elapsed before Sanji burst through the roof just behind them, and then finally, a masked Usopp, sailing high into the air from nowhere to plant headfirst atop the building a few feet off. _

"_So that's my only request Robin." Luffy resumed with barely a pause. "Dying or not dying. I don't really care what you have to say. Just say it after you're back at sea with us, okay?"_

_The rest of the freshly assembled Straw Hats did not hesitate to call out their agreement, and despite all she had done to remain steadfast and stoic through the past several days, she could not stop the tears that welled up. _

_Wordlessly, the crew gathered themselves and assumed their places atop crenellations to either side of their captain, awaiting his orders, as Luffy reassured her._

"_Just leave the rest to us."_

_She struggled to find words as a tempest raged within her. _Why? Why had they come?! Why couldn't they understand the danger they were in?! _She could feel her turmoil and desperation transmute into more frustrated tears. _She was trying to protect them from her! Why couldn't they see!?

"_You don't understand!" She finally shouted back. She tried then, to convey to them her dark past. The inescapable hardship that would come from merely associating with her. The terrifying devastation of the impending Buster Call. _

"_That terrible weapon has already stolen everything else from me! I will not let it take aim at my _nakama_! No matter how far I travel, I will never escape my past! And as much as I might wish to be at your sides, as long as I stay with you, I won't be able to protect you from my enemy! Because…my enemy is the whole world!" She sobbed. "No matter how kind you all are you'll eventually be forced to cast me aside to save yourselves! That's why I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME AFTER ME! I'D RATHER DIE THEN FORCE THAT UPON YOU!" She shrieked hopelessly._

_Her secret was revealed, and she could feel a heavy hush amongst her would-be rescuers. She prayed it would be enough to make them turn back. The silence lasted a heartbeat before the cruel cackling of her captor, the chief of the vicious CP9, trespassed upon the moment. His agents stood poised to strike at those dearest to her upon his command, but he clearly could not resist the chance to taunt his enemies. _

"_She's right, you know! No one could be stupid enough to be this woman's ally! You see that flag?" He crowed, pointing up at the World Government's banner flailing high above them in the wind. "It represents the combined strength of over 170 different nations around the entire world! That is the scope of her enemy! Do you even understand how overwhelming their power is compared to yours?! Do you have any idea what it means to make her your ally?" He mocked maliciously._

_For a few agonizing moments, a torn Robin almost believed that might've been enough to change their minds. Until she heard Luffy's command, just barely audible, issued calmly to his masked marksman. _

"_I see now. All right then. Sogeking."_

"_Hmm?" Replied the poorly disguised Usopp._

"_That flag…" Luffy stabbed his finger to the sky, "Make it burn." _

"_Roger."_

_Robin barely had time to gasp in astonishment before Usopp raised his giant slingshot to the sky and launched a streaking fireball, instantly setting the pompous standard ablaze. Across the island, hundreds of pirates and marines alike were witness to the act of treason, watching with shock as the triangular flag burst into flame._

"_ARE YOU INSANE!?" Spandam screeched. "You realize you just declared war on the entire WORLD GOVERNMENT!? There's nowhere on this earth you can survive now!" _

"_YOU WANNA BET!?" Luffy's defiant roar resounded deafeningly across the ravine, striking terror into his foe's heart. Robin shivered as he directed his ferocious stare right into her eyes._

"_ROBIIIIIN!" He hollered "I STILL HAVEN'T HEARD YOU SAY IT YET! SO TELL US YOURSELF, RIGHT NOW! SAY YOU WANT TO LIVE!" _

_Something collapsed inside her at that point, and she felt ripened tears stream freely across her face as her deepest desire, suppressed for so long she had convinced herself that it wasn't there, finally exploded to the surface. _

To live? _Her lips quivered with the thought._ _She had always believed that she had no right. So many had told her over the years that her existence was a crime, she had come to believe that even simply wishing to continue in this world was a sin. Only one person had ever told her otherwise. _

"_The sea is vast, Robin. One day, without a doubt, you'll find friends to call your own. Friends who will protect you no matter what." _

_After so much betrayal, she had been unable to believe Saul's words would ever come true. But now, somehow, standing impossibly before her eyes and defying everything she had told herself for years, stood the very _nakama _he had foretold, the ones she had long ago consigned to the realm of naive fantasy. _

_In her heart, she had realized some time ago that the Straw Hats might finally have been the family she had denied herself for so long. But this truth, barely acknowledged, had only frightened her more deeply than she had ever felt on her own. For the first time in her harsh and lonely twenty-year experience, she had found something that she was terrified of losing. And she was entirely unequipped to cope with this vulnerability. Convinced that only way to protect what she had found was to cast it away, she had kept them at arm's length, steeled herself to the inevitable pain of letting go, and resigned herself to a martyr's death. _

_But now the Straw Hats had made it clear to her that being rid of them would not be so easy, that indeed, her life was no longer just her own to discard. She saw clearly now that she belonged in part to all of them, just as they did to her, and that their fates would not be disentangled. And she knew now that if she stripped away all the lies to herself, there was only one way to answer to Luffy's demand. She felt the last of her hesitation dissolve within her, and the words she had vainly held at bay spill loudly from her lips._

"_I WANT TO LIIIIIIIIVE!" She howled back at him through her tears. "LET ME RETURN TO SEA WITH YOU!"_

_She could just make out, through her clouded eyes, her captain's grin and the grim determination on her _nakama's _faces. _

"_Yosh" Said Luffy. "Let's go." _

* * *

Robin came back to the present, sitting up in her bed to wipe her quiet tears from her face. She could never recall that day without the same overwhelming snarl of emotions, the despair and grief, hope and joy, returning to her. _Such silliness, _she chided with some amusement.

_There was no need to cry anymore. That despair was behind her now, s_he reminded herself. Her _nakama_ had saved her. Luffy_ had saved her. Like he always did._

Unbidden, her captain's face loomed out of the darkness of the room and into her mind, his handsome, boyish features contorted with frantic fear. It was his face as it had been the very last time she'd seen him before their two-year parting. He was running to her, his hand outstretched desperately, his mouth agape as he silently wailed her name, and it was the only time she had ever seen such helpless panic in his eyes.

She felt the palpable memory of her own dread seize her heart, as though the threat of Kuma Bartholomew's unstoppable paws were still there in the room with her. It was a moment before she realized her hand was extended into the darkness before her, reaching out to her captain's vanished fingers.

After a few seconds, her senses returned to her, and she lowered her hand to her lap, still damp there from her earlier tears.

_Luffy_…

Her captain's name whispered in her heart, as though by saying it, she could somehow send reassurances back in time to him, and soothe the agony she had seen in his eyes two years ago.

She would never forget that face. It had haunted her during her time at Tequila Wolf, and during her stay with the Revolutionary Army. The pain in Luffy's eyes as his _nakama _were stolen from him one by one remained one of the most powerful evocations she had of how important the Straw Hat crew must be to their captain.

_How important _she_ must be to him_.

The thought was enough make her heart race again, with an entirely different emotion this time; a warm, aching sensation somewhere between a sweet solace and a shameful yearning, between a confused trepidation and a secret, cherished joy. It was the hallmark of the dense mesh of unspoken feelings she had wrapped around the young man who was equal parts her captain and her hero and her close friend.

_And perhaps...?_

She sighed to herself, unable to finish the thought. Even after all this time, the notion that she might add yet another word to that list was almost too taboo to fathom. That Luffy was precious to her, she would never deny. That the courage and strength and concern he had mustered countless times on her behalf filled her with immeasurable gratitude – this she took for granted.

But those were feelings she nurtured for the rest of her crewmates too, and what she could no longer avoid confronting were the obvious differences augmenting her love for her captain beyond that. In the months since Luffy had first pulled her into his grand adventure, and for the two years she'd been apart from him, she had become increasingly alarmed by how much deeper the rabbit hole of her feelings for him had grown, and plagued by the growing recognition that she would eventually have to discuss a deeper understanding of their relationship with him. She felt obligated to express _something_ more to him than just her friendship and appreciation for everything he had done for her. If only she could truly face or even understand what that might be.

Whatever it was, the feeling had been amplified when she had learned of the death of Luffy's brother. She had shuddered as she imagined how much grief he was experiencing. What she wouldn't have given, at the time, to be able to be at his side, for the chance to allay his suffering.

There was so much she had been unable to say to him back then, but she had vowed that she would tell him all of it when they finally met again. It had been a week since being reunited, however, and she had still failed to summon the words she had intended. Instead, her cowardice continued to undermine her.

_At least I've developed a decent poker face around him_, she thought to herself_, _though truthfully it hardly took much of her practiced composure to keep her hidden feelings from her rather emotionally naive captain. Of course, it was that same unassuming gullibility about him that made it so difficult to imagine ever explaining to him these complicated sentiments that she would hardly admit to herself she even had. How could she ever make him, of all people, understand when she herself was so confused by it all?

A part of her was still trying to reconcile the shame she felt at harboring these thoughts for someone so much younger, and more innocent, than her. She could not help feeling as though the mere mention of her sordid desires to him might somehow sully the wholesomeness about him that she loved so, and perhaps – even more frighteningly – jeopardize the very relationship she already treasured so much.

Amidst her racing thoughts, her eerily lit quarters seemed abruptly suffocating and she was overwhelmed by the urge to escape outside to the ship's deck and quiet her mind.

Throwing aside her sheets and hopping decisively out of bed, she quickly gathered some layers to cover herself from the cold, and slipped quietly out the cabin door into the crisp midnight air.

Outside on the second-floor landing she pulled her coat tight against a brisk sea breeze, took a deep breath, and leaned up against the railing, trying to collect herself.

Though night out, the cloudless sky made it much brighter outside than within her quarters, and her eyes scanned quickly over the vacant moonlit deck of the ship. She glanced almost straight up to the top of the forward mast and saw an expected light glowing high above in the crow's nest, where Nami should be spending her night watch.

She briefly considered seeking out the navigator's company. It might settle her nerves to chat with her awhile. _But then again…._

If she was honest with herself, her roommate was perhaps one of the last people she wanted to see when these thoughts were on her mind, despite her being like a sister to Robin. The thought of confiding to Nami about what she was experiencing had occurred to her before. She certainly trusted the younger female Straw Hat enough, and had exchanged personal secrets with her before. But she also had many reasons to believe that the red-haired navigator already knew the feelings she was wrestling with all too personally...

_And that was a whole other complication of its own_, she thought with a sigh.

She decided to make her way down the steps leading to the lower deck, crossing the grassy lawn to seat herself down on the ship's dangling one-man swing. She had enjoyed several comfortable reveries in this spot before, in moments not unlike this one; usually late in the evening when the rest of the crew had retired to their quarters and she could be alone with her thoughts.

If one thing had been clear since the Straw Hat's collective return to the grand line and their departure for the fabled New World, it was that none of them had spent the last two years idle. Every one of them seemed changed, stronger and surer of both themselves and each other; as if they all had sworn the same unspoken oath never to allow the utter defeat they had suffered at Sabaody Archipelago repeat itself.

Robin recalled being hard pressed to hide her surprise at Usopp's transformation from his former, skinny self to his new, sinewy physique, or to keep her eyes from lingering too openly on Luffy's newly pronounced muscularity and the novel scars acquired from his battles at Marine Headquarters. Zoro and Sanj had changed as well, but this was something most evident in their eyes. Franky had returned a half-foot taller and with an even more imposing cybernetic stature than before. Only Brook and Chopper seemed outwardly the same, though she was sure they had new tricks up their sleeves too.

As for her fellow female Straw Hat… Nami's conspicuous physical development had been another reminder of how much younger her close friend – and perhaps latent rival – was than she. At the height of her femininity, Nami was more beautiful… _and more age-appropriate… _than ever before, a fact that sat uncomfortably in the smallest corner of Robin's thoughts, amidst a shameful puddle of strictly censored feelings she knew were somewhere between intimidation and envy.

How much it pained her to even think such pettiness about her best friend or to be seeking solace from the fact that – as enthralling as she knew Nami would be to any conventionally inclined warm-blooded male – Luffy was no ordinary man for his age, especially when it came to these matters. _The fact was_, she told herself, _neither of us probably has any advantage with him, at least in this regard_. Somehow the thought wasn't very comforting.

And yet, she also knew from more intimate late-night girl talks, how close Nami was to their captain, and how far back their relationship went. Other than Zoro, no other member of the crew had known Luffy as long, or could claim to have had their lives more dramatically rescued by his intervention.

Yes, there was little doubt in Robin's mind that Nami knew precisely the emotions she was dealing with, and that there was little to be gained for either of them from discussing it; and indeed, perhaps much that might be lost. Even tacitly, this thorny issue had the potential to come between them in a way of which she was sure they were both aware. It could only be worse if voiced openly, possibly even alienating the two of them such that their former closeness could be unrecoverable. Hence the standstill she'd been experiencing.

Her hands tightened with a momentary frustration around the ropes suspending her swaying seat. The motion of the swing, while thought provoking, did not seem to be providing her quite the same peace of mind that it had in the past.

She was pulled out of her spell when she heard the soft rustle of someone climbing nimbly down the ship's rigging.

_Was Nami's shift over already?_ She wondered. Sure enough, it was the slender navigator leaving the crow's nest, who leapt down from the last fifteen feet of hemp scaffolding to land softly on the opposite side of the ship's lawn.

She watched Nami brush her hands off on her lap, apparently unaware of Robin's presence in the shadows under the tree swing's bough. But just as she was about to call out to her friend, the navigator started up the nearest staircase to the second-floor landing. At first Robin thought she was returning to their quarters, but then saw her bypass the door to their room and instead climb lithely up the adjacent ladder to the upper deck, disappearing out of view towards the helm.

For a while Robin wondered where she might be going so late, until a thought occurred to her. Rising from her seat, she headed up the nearest staircase to her left, until she stood atop the rear landing. Telling herself that this wasn't spying, merely curiosity, she gazed up toward the forward deck and saw more or less what she had expected.

She could see Nami standing just past the wheel of the ship's helm, at the base of the steps leading up to the Sunny's massive bowsprit, her attention directed up to the top of the staircase. There Robin observed a hat-sporting character perched on the atop the ship's lion-shaped figurehead, sitting with his legs drawn up to his chest, his arms crossed and elbows draped over his knees as he gazed pensively out across the black, rippling iridescence of the waves ahead.

_Luffy…_ She recognized.

Just as she had suspected, from her vantage point, she hadn't noticed that her captain had evidently been out for some late night meditation of his own, in his usual favorite spot. Nami must've seen him from her place atop the mast and come down to visit, Robin realized. She could tell the navigator had called up to him, because she saw her captain turn his head to her and then twist around in his seat to look down at her.

They exchanged unheard words for a few moments, before Nami proceeded up the steps and climbed up onto the figurehead to take a seat next to her captain. They both turned to face the sea again, evidently sharing an inaudible conversation.

For reasons Robin tried not to think about, instead of deciding then to return to her spot on the swing or even back to her quarters, she watched passively for some time as the two sat nearly shoulder to shoulder, all the while telling herself in the back of her mind that her ears weren't straining to catch the intermittent murmur of her captain's recognizable chuckle, and Nami's accompanying feminine laughter, which carried occasionally back to her over the wind.

She saw Luffy suddenly raise his arm, gesturing in what appeared to be a bicep flex, and caught a few words of his that sounded something like _"…nakama…" _and "…Usopp…_" _and maybe"…strong…!"_, _which Nami seemed to find funny, because she laughed noticeably. Robin was inwardly mortified by the sudden impulse, perhaps conditioned by her many years as a covert operative and assassin, to use her _Hana Hana no Mi_ powers to eavesdrop on their conversation.

As their tête-à-tête carried on, Luffy became more and more animated, his gestures increasingly expressive, until at one point he leapt upright on the prow, waving his arms up and out in a big arc, and then miming impressively in what she surmised must be an impersonation of their robotic shipwright. Nami gazed up amusedly at him, shaking with visible laughter while also trying to admonish her captain to keep his voice down.

They continued like that for awhile, Luffy on his feet, acting out various outwardly inscrutable scenarios for his navigator's entertainment, occasionally glancing down to see her reaction, while she stayed seated next to him, leaning slightly to her side, her eyes glued on her captain's silly antics. She laughed often, hardly looking away from him for even a moment, even as he appeared to settle down and then lapse into silence, turning back to the sea to assume an intrepid pose; his fists planted on his waist, elbows flared, like some character out of a comic book. For a long moment, both Robin and her friend stared at him, equally mesmerized by their captain's quiet charisma, until Nami interrupted his reverie with an unknown question. Luffy glanced back down to her, replying inaudibly to whatever she had asked, to which Nami patted the space beside her, inviting her captain to sit down again.

Robin, abruptly aware of just how long she had been nosily monitoring the scene, resolved guiltily to head back to her quarters and at least try to return to sleep. But just as she was turning to leave, she froze as she witnessed Luffy lower himself down next to his navigator, and then Nami sidling up close enough to him that they were fully flush. A moment later, she leaned warmly into his side and tilted her head against his shoulder.

If Luffy seemed surprised by this unusual display of intimacy, she could not tell, and it was a long time before either of them moved.

Including Robin. She stood rooted to the spot, suddenly unable to tear her eyes away from what was increasingly clear was something she should definitely not be witnessing in the first place. There was no denying now that every additional moment she spent watching was tantamount to a selfish infringement. Unbeknownst to her, though, her heart was racing again as the thoughts that had preoccupied her the entire night swirled through her head once more like white noise.

Several questions sped through her mind in rapid succession.

_What did this mean? Was there more between Luffy and Nami than she had been aware? Had she been oblivious this whole time, to think she wasn't falling behind her best friend? Had she been a hopeless fool from the start, to think she'd ever stood a chance? How should she act when she faced them next? Should she tell Nami what she had seen? Play it off with gentle teasing? Apologize for spying? Or just keep the secret, and pretend she had witnessed nothing? Should she… make a last stand, confront Luffy, and confess her own feelings? _

She swallowed, at the last thought, pushing down the tide of feelings escalating within her, and was just about to bolt back to her room and hide from it all, when she heard Nami's raised voice. She looked up to see that Nami had pulled away from Luffy, and was staring back at him, half on her knees with an air of frightened-deer-like paralysis; as though both momentarily confused but also poised to dash away at a moment's notice. She seemed like she was in distress, for her voice sounded louder than before, like she was asking something important.

Luffy, for his part, stared mutely back at his navigator with what was either calmness or bewilderment, and then finally said something quietly back to her. But this only seemed to upset Nami more, and she jumped suddenly to her feet, hands clutched defensively against her heart, while demanding of him again in a hurt voice raised just shy of being heard across the ship. Robin wasn't sure if Luffy answered her or not, but Nami didn't wait more than a few seconds before leaping off the bow and hurrying away from him down the steps to the helm. The harried swiftness with which she left made it clear something had offended her, and both Luffy and their unnoticed spectator followed her with their eyes as she escaped back to the lower landing and disappeared into her cabin, shutting the door behind her with an emphasis that wasn't quite a slam.

The stillness that remained in the aftermath hung heavily in the night wind, seeming to blanket the ship's entire deck, and Robin noticed that it was a long time that Luffy's inscrutable gaze lingered at the edge of the upper landing, where his navigator had disappeared from view, as if he were as uncertain about what had just happened as Robin. Eventually, he seemed to return to himself, removing his trademark straw hat with one hand, and running the other through his thick black hair. He shook his head slightly with what looked like a resigned and perplexed sigh before donning his hat again and resuming the position in which she'd first seen him.

Robin wasn't sure how much longer she stood against the rear railing, staring intently at the unreadable stillness of her captain's back, as though by concentrating hard enough she could reveal his thoughts to her.

Judging by how she hadn't noticed any light being lit, even briefly, from the windows of the girl's quarters, she reasoned that her roommate had likely gone straight to bed. Robin wondered if Nami had been aware enough to notice her absence, hoped that if she had, she would just assume that her roommate was on another late night research binge in the ship's library. She knew if Nami later surmised that she'd been out on the deck during the previous drama, she might have some justifiably uncomfortable questions for Robin.

She especially didn't want Nami to suspect anything about what she was about to do. As conflicted and confusing as the events of this evening had been thus far, there was a part of her – a ruthless and calculating part that had served her well during her twenty years before joining the Straw Hats, but that she'd been happy to have neglected since, although it remained a small but consistent facet of her world view – that saw this moment opportunistically. This was the Machiavellian voice in her head that conspiratorially whispered to her the dangerous truth: that if she was careful and clear-headed about it all, this moment could be a crucial for her.

_She might never have a better chance than now to…to what? _She asked herself. She wasn't quite sure, but as she made her way carefully down the nearby steps, and quietly crossed the moonlit lawn to ascend the opposite staircase, she felt sure she had to act. The part of her mind that lent itself to political calculus – that could see personal relationships as something of a game, and see another person's sudden disadvantage, even her best friend's, as potentially equaling her own advantage – this part had taken over. It was this part of her that had guided her up the forward landing.

She hesitated just before reaching the top of the stairs, struggling with the last of her moral capital as her conscience pondered the ethical ramifications of attempting to exploit what she had just witnessed to her own romantic ends.

But after only a brief moment, even the part of her that felt guilty about her half-formed intentions seemed to stumble upon some kind of happy loophole. The logic was something along the lines of every trite expression she'd ever heard about how "all was fair in love in war" and how "love was a battlefield". From the moment she had watched Nami lay her head upon Luffy's shoulder, she had realized how desperately she really loved her captain and the real, practical implications of what she was now understanding was really a kind of madness that had been growing inside her. How ludicrous it suddenly seemed, the once-entertained idea that she might be able to "wait out" these feelings – or simply place them aside and hope that they resolved themselves! How feeble such a notion appeared in retrospect.

It was laughable, she realized now, the belief that she could've ever held off from pursuing this love – however much her moral reservations or self-restraint might tell her she should – or even that she might be able to pursue it with anything less than every last shred of feminine wile, cunning strategy, and ruthless determination that she had her disposal; personal decorum and code of honor between friends be damned! She reminded herself that she'd already sworn some time ago she was done denying herself happiness, that she would no longer forget she owed herself the right to pursue her dreams. And Luffy had certainly become one of her dreams.

She knew suddenly that the love she cherished for Luffy was such that she would never abide handcuffing her chance at its fulfillment simply to avoid interfering with that of her sister. However much she loved Nami, she viewed her feelings for her captain as something separate and just as important, and she would not let herself lose out to her romantic rival; not without putting up a fight.

_Sorry Nami_, she rationalized, _it'd be one thing if it was clear that Luffy loved you back, and that this particular door to his heart was already closed to me. _But if she'd read the earlier situation correctly, things were anything but that straightforward. _And where there was emotional confusion_, she told herself, _there was also an opening_.

In the background of her musings, an amusing fantasy was playing out, the archetypical miniature devil-Robin on one shoulder (dressed, of course, in a revealing red leather number replete with brandished pitchfork, to which she wondered idly how Luffy might react in real life) egging her on with gleeful abandon, while her more chastely attired angelic counterpart lectured her demonic avatar from the other side of real-Robin's neck; until, that is, Devil-Robin appeared next to Angel-Robin to whisper collusively in her ear something that turned her modest version's face a deep, embarrassed red, so that eventually Angel-Robin leered with a sneaky look of imaginative lechery and threw her arm around her underdressed adversary's shoulders, the both of them producing hefty flagons of mead from thin air and toasting one other with a new, devious consensus, before resuming together their silent cheering for real-life Robin.

She let out a deep breath, acutely aware of just how nervous she was, then. _But the die had been cast, things were already in motion_, she thought with perhaps just a hint of melodrama. She had managed to recruit both devil-Robin and angel-Robin to her cause. If love was chess, this was her moment for making a daring sacrifice that might change the course of the game. The notion made her smile, gave her a strange courage. After all, she reminded herself, she did play a pretty mean game of chess. Without waiting any longer, she climbed the last couple of steps and walked deliberately onto the upper deck.

Her gaze was drawn immediately to Luffy's brooding backside, silhouetted starkly against the glassy moonlight, so that her breath caught in her throat for a moment. He didn't appear to have moved at all, and seemed so unusually contemplative that she hesitated to penetrate the silence.

Finally, she advanced slowly around the helm, trying consciously to make her steps loud enough to telegraph her approach, until she stood where Nami first had, at the bottom of the steps leading up to the ship's figurehead. Luffy appeared then to finally hear her presence, for his head perked up and he spun swiftly in his seat to face her.

"Oh! Its you, Robin!" The surprise in his voice seemed genuine, as did the warm smile his face quickly melted into.

Robin felt a wave of heat rush through her, as though the warmth of his handsome grin had somehow been directly transferred to her body; at the same time, she felt her whole body relax, all of her earlier nervousness vanishing as quickly as Luffy's taciturn demeanor had. It seemed impossible to be anxious with her captain smiling that way. The irrational urge to blurt out her furious, maddening desire for him right then and there ("I LOVE YOU, LUFFY! MAKE ME YOURS FOREVER! ***POUNCE***) flared briefly at the periphery of her consciousness, but she maintained her composure without much effort.

"Luffy…" She said coolly, while smiling at him with an affection she knew was anything but. "Good evening. You're up late tonight. I trust you're doing well?"

She hadn't really thought for even a moment, about what she was going to say to him first, and a detached and overly self-analytical part of her was aware that her opening was somewhat…stiff. But she reminded herself there was never much point in over-thinking these matters, especially with someone as unpretentious as Luffy, with whom it was so clear such considerations played no role in conversation at all.

Luffy chuckled in that way that she liked so much and nodded.

"Shishishishishi! Yeah I'm all right. Just out for some fresh air, you know?" If his encounter with Nami was on his mind, he gave no sign of it.

"I see." His archeologist replied. "Trouble sleeping, perhaps?"

He grinned.

"Yeah, a little." He paused a moment before explaining, "I guess, I've just been so excited to be back at sea with everyone again, and on a new adventure! It's been hard to stay in bed at night."

"I can understand that." She offered.

There was a pleasant moment's comfortable silence, where her captain's gaze was locked openly with hers. Then he spoke.

"Ne, what about you, Robin? Why aren't you in bed yet?" Luffy asked curiously.

"Hmm…." She blinked at him. "I guess had a strange dream that woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep. So I just decided to get some fresh air as well, I suppose."

"Oh, I get it. That makes sense, I guess." He grinned at her once more. "So then," he continued, "do you wanna come sit with me for awhile? Its nice up here."

Robin smiled broadly at the invitation for which she'd been hoping.

"I would love that." She accepted graciously, before she mounted the staircase, and climbed smoothly up onto the bow to sit beside him. After she took her seat, they turned to meet each other's eyes for a long moment, each offering the other a pleasant smile.

_God, he really is handsome, though. _She thought as she took in the pleasing outlines of his face in the moonlight, careful to keep her admiration from projecting on her face.

Eventually they both returned their gaze to the landscape of gentle waves stretching out into the night horizon, still relishing the comfortable silence between them, and the quiet pleasure of each other's company.

Now that she was finally alone with him, Robin found very little coming to mind in the way of actual things to say. But this didn't bother her much. His company, talkative or not, was usually more than enough in itself. Certainly Luffy didn't appear to be at all uncomfortable with the sparseness of their conversation (not that she could ever recall noticing any kind of social anxiety from her captain's before). Still, she _was_ pleasantly startled when Luffy interjected after awhile, to ask a question of her;

"Ne, Robin?"

"Mmm?"

"Your dream...the one that woke you up…what was it about?" He turned to face her, as if it had just occurred to him that her dream must've been distressful to disturb her sleep. "Was it something…sad?"

The look of earnest, inquiring concern on his face was disconcerting, for it was rare to find him wearing such a conscientious expression. She had the sudden impression of a child trying on clothes that were too big for him, which made her lips curl with amusement. It _was_ adorable though, and his concern for her fueled the fuzzy feeling of gladness she felt while sitting at his side.

"No, not really sad, I suppose." She paused, trying to find the right words. "At least…it was a little more complicated than that. More like…a mix of different feelings, happy and sad and frightening…and even hopeful, I guess." She wondered how much she should tell him, but could see her explanation had only confused him more. She smiled inwardly, realizing she should've known better than to overtax Luffy's emotional vocabulary all at once.

"Actually," She went on, resolving suddenly to be as forthright as she dared, as this always seemed to produce the best results with Luffy, "To be honest, it was mostly about you, Luffy…."

She turned her head slightly toward him with an enigmatic smile as she said this, trying to gauge his reaction to her revelation.

"Ehh?! Me?" The surprise on his face did not disappoint her, and she giggled slightly as she reiterated.

"Yes. And the rest of crew too…. But… mostly you." She repeated.

She waited as he seemed to digest this information with whatever unique, and unknowable process of Luffy-ism that ground away behind his piercing eyes.

Finally he asked, with a serious look on his face.

"Ne, Robin. Since it was about me…was there meat involved?"

Robin blinked with surprise for a couple of seconds, before she was seized by a fit of pronounced giggles. It was such that she had to cover her lips with her fingers and turn away slightly to avoid his goofy expression, a look of genuine enthusiasm about the prospect of meat potentially being discussed, combined with an annoyed confusion at her laughter.

"Hey…what's so funny, Robin?!" He pouted.

"_Gomen_, _gomen_, Luffy," she waved apologetically, "I didn't mean to…. Its just that, I didn't expect that at all."

She struggled to get her laughter under control.

"So…no meat then?" Said Luffy, sounding sincerely disappointed, and Robin felt her giggles bubble up again.

"No, I'm afraid not. It was my dream _about_ you, remember, not really a dream about the things that you _like_, Luffy." She replied with a smile, trying to benignly point out on her captain's minor Theory of Mind deficits.

"No meat… that _is_ a sad dream." reasoned her captain, and as she giggled again, Luffy looked up at her with a smile, apparently glad he was a least making her laugh.

His next question, though, was astute enough that it quelled her laugh something quick:

"Ne, Robin…I don't get it though…if it was a dream about me…about your _nakama…_then why were you frightened? Did something bad happen?"

She sighed, and fell into an extended silence, searching for the right answer to his insight.

"I guess…" She tried, "I guess it was because I was dreaming about when you and everyone came to save me at Enies Lobby. I think I was remembering how frightened and alone I was before you came."

She went on quickly though,

"But I was also remembering how happy I was when everyone came to my rescue. I was dreaming about that moment, the one where you told me I should keep living. When you made me say the words. Do you remember, Luffy?"

He smirked.

"I do. But, _ne_, Robin don't say I made you say it. I just asked you to be honest with us. You're the one that chose to say that, remember? And that's…because you're really strong, Robin."

She was stunned. _How could he be so sharp, all of sudden?_

"Luffy…" She whispered. She had to look away at the moment, lest he risk seeing her eyes watering up.

"Robin? Did I say something bad?"

She choked on a weak laugh.

"Bad? No, definitely not. I'm just really happy you think so." She turned back to him, "That means a lot to me, that my captain thinks I'm strong."

"Shishishishishi!" Luffy laughed sheepishly. "Of course I do! You've always been strong, Robin; you're a member of my crew, after all! And I'm sure you've gotten even stronger since the last two years, right?"

He predicted confidently.

"I suppose I have." She agreed. "It seems like everyone has, don't you think?"

"Yeah. Definitely! I can't wait to see everyone show off in our next big battle!" He said clenching his fists with an excited grin, and throwing anticipatory punches into the air with his familiar boyish enthusiasm.

She smiled at his behavior, and decided now was as good a time as any to make a move. Copying Nami's earlier actions, she took advantage of his distraction to slide noticeably closer to her captain, until their shoulders were only inches apart.

From here she could catch some of his scent, a pleasant, vaguely cinnamon-like aroma that she found utterly intoxicating. She resisted the urge to bury her face in the side of his neck.

"But do you know, Luffy?" She said to get his attention, grinning mischievously when she saw him notice with a small surprise, how much closer she was sitting. "The reason everyone has been able to become so strong? Especially me?"

He shook his head wonderingly, as he gazed into her eyes.

"Its because of you, of course. None of us would've been able to come this far, without you, captain. The reason everyone tries so hard, its definitely because they want to live up to your dream, Luffy. We all want to repay what you've done for us. At least, I certainly do." As she said this she leaned her inspecting stare towards him.

"Me? What did I do?" He asked, eyes still glued on hers.

She laughed then. He could be so cluelessly modest sometimes.

"Why, everything, of course. You brought us all together. You gave us a chance to chase our dreams. You saved all of us. Me, more than once. _Baka_, did you really not realize that?"

He didn't say anything for a moment, just looked at her speechlessly with his large, innocent eyes. _God, if she could just put her hand on his face!_

"I guess…" He said carefully, "I guess I understand that. Because that's the way I feel too, I think." He beamed at her as he went on, "I mean, I wouldn't have gotten this far, either, without everyone else standing beside me. And being with you guys is helping me to realize my dream. So that's why I'm grateful to all my _nakama." _

He hesitated for a moment, and looked up to the night sky, before finishing.

"Thinking of everyone, and how I want to be strong enough to protect you all in the future… that's what I thought about while I was training with Rayleigh. Its what I finally remembered after Ace died… I think it gave me strength."

Robin stared at him.

"Luffy…" she whispered again. Feeling a moment of daring, she reached out and grasped his hand in hers. Luffy looked surprised, but he didn't pull away, and didn't say anything. She squeezed his hand softly then, and felt a small thrill when a moment later, he squeezed it back with a warm smile. It gave her the courage to find her words

"You know, Luffy. I'm really sorry." She said weakly.

He frowned at her.

"Sorry? What for?"

She looked away.

"I wanted to tell you that…I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you. After you lost your brother. When I heard the news I was heart broken. I can only imagine how it must've felt for you. How it still feels…. Anyway, Luffy, I wanted so much to be there for you, and I'm truly sorry that you had deal with it all on your own. I promised myself I'd never let that happen again. I promised I'd be at your side when you needed me again, no matter what…." She trailed off.

Luffy was quiet a long time after that, his expression grimly unreadable. Finally, he squeezed her hand again and said.

"Don't apologize, Robin. Don't you see?" He turned a pained smile at her that felt not unlike a harpoon through the chest. "It was because you _were_ there for me that I was able to survive all of that. I mean, its true everyone may have been far away, but I knew you guys were thinking of me. And thinking about how I wanted to see everyone's smiles again… I'm sure that's what gave me the strength to find my way back to you all."

He pushed his hat off his head, and let it dangle down onto his back by its drawstring, running his free hand through his hair again.

"Of course, I still think about Ace a lot…. Sometimes…I dream about what happened… and it wakes me up." He paused, and Robin didn't dare to speak until he finished.

He glanced over at her and said, "So I think I understand when you talk about dreams that wake you up, and stuff. I had a lot of them at first, and I didn't like it at all. But then, I would always think of how all my friends were far away, training to get stronger, and it would make me feel better. I would think of everyone every day, and wonder how you all were doing…" He drifted off at the end, and then seemed to add, half to himself, "…especially you…. "

The last part made Robin's heart stop. He had said it so softly she thought she might've imagined it. But when he didn't say anything else, she felt that same unexplainable daring seize her, and she placed her other palm over his clasped hand.

"Luffy…" She started meekly, and then the rest of her words began to spill out of her, one on top of the other. "Luffy…I thought of you too. Every day. Every night! I'd fall asleep thinking about you…I woke up…thinking about you. You were always on my mind…. I was always wondering if you were okay, if you were… thinking of me, too. I missed everyone else too, of course... but Luffy…there was so much I wanted to say to you, you especially. So many things I wanted to tell you..."

Her words faded away as she was confronted by her captain's unanswering silence. He seemed to realize she was waiting for him to acknowledge her in some way, because he glanced briefly at her eyes before looking away awkwardly.

"Ne, Robin...what do you mean? What kind of things?" he sounded confused, and she hesitated. _Perhaps... perhaps she had read things incorrectly again_? She panicked to herself. She had thought, with what she had heard, that they might finally understand each other... but... maybe she had been just as misguided as Nami?

_No, _she thought to herself, _it didn't matter._ She had already said this much. She wasn't going to stop now.

"I guess... they're things I've wanted to say to you for a long time, now." She said slowly. "Ever since Enies Lobby, I think... I had always told myself I was just waiting for the right time to tell you, but really I was just making excuses... I was afraid..."

She noticed from the corner of her gaze, that Luffy was watching her keenly now. But it took all of her resolve just to keep talking, let alone make eye contact with him. Instead she looked down at the hand of his that she had enfolded between her palms.

"And then, after we were separated, I suddenly realized for the first time, that if I kept on making excuses, kept on denying it...I might actually never get the chance I was waiting for.

"Before what happened at Sabaody, no matter how bad things got, a part of me was always sure that you would pull through and save us all. Save me. The way you always do. I took it for granted that as long as we were with you, there would always be another chance to tell you how I felt.

"I wasn't even thinking about how unfair it was for me to rely on you so much. It wasn't until you were gone that I realized that I should've had the courage to be honest with you from the beginning. I promised myself that the next time we were alone together, I wouldn't let the opportunity to tell you just pass by again. Even if I was afraid."

She looked up at him then, terrified to see that he was still gazing back at her with that same inscrutable expression. In the back of her mind, a part of her kept whispering how closely this scene might appear from a distance, to resemble the one she had just witnessed between her captain and Nami. She tried to push the thought aside and carry on, when Luffy cut in.

"Ne, Robin, I don't really get what you're saying. You're not making any sense to me. What is it you wanted to tell me? Why don't you just tell me already? You're acting just like Nami was. Its confusing..."

Robin froze, again. It as if he had read her unspoken thought, and the first time he had mentioned his recent rendezvous with the ship's navigator.

"What do you mean, 'just like Nami?' " She asked, feigning ignorance.

His brow knitted and he looked at her, perplexed.

"You saw it, didn't you? How she ran off earlier? I don't know what I said, but I think I made her mad." He squinted away from her as he recalled the exchange, and pushed his lips out in an expression she might've found funny in a different context. "I was going to ask you about it, actually. I thought you could maybe explain it to me, because I don't get it at all. She was saying some stuff kinda like you. Like about how she wanted to tell me something but wasn't able to. It was all really confusing." He scratched his head, and she could practically feel his frustration.

"I mean, when I want to tell someone something, I just tell them. I don't understand, why you wouldn't just say what's on your mind." He looked to her, as if trying to judge whether he was in the right, here. A part of her was beginning to piece together a vague idea of what had transpired between her captain and navigator, a misunderstanding that actually wasn't too unexpected if one thought about Luffy's personality. But her mind was still reeling from something he'd mentioned earlier.

"What did you mean, 'I saw it', Luffy? Saw what?"

Luffy frowned again.

"Earlier, when Nami I were sitting here. Weren't you watching?" He seemed genuinely confused right now, as if what he were saying were totally obvious and he couldn't understand why she was denying it.

"Watching...? I...uh..." Robin felt herself getting uncharacteristically flustered. Her earlier clandestine behavior seemed quite silly, all of a sudden. Finally she gave up,

"You...knew I was there?" she asked faintly.

"Shishishishi!" He chuckled, clearly amused at having caught her off guard. "It was pretty obvious, Robin. You know, I trained a lot too while I was gone. I'm pretty good at sensing people now. " She knew his laughter wasn't meant to humiliate, but she was still immensely glad she had the cover of night to hide her mortified blush.

"I see. That explains it." She shook her head self-chastisingly. She never ceased to be reminded how foolish it was to underestimate her captain.

"And...you're not angry, with me?" She asked tentatively.

"Why would I be angry?" He said, with his same earlier perplexed expression.

"For spying on you? You're not mad?" She pushed.

He shrugged. "Like I told you, I was gonna ask you about it anyway."

She smiled after hearing this, and then laughed in her head for the umpteenth time at her captain's strangeness. Perhaps she should've been unsurprised, given Luffy's indifference to conduct that bothered most people. Her eyes still rested on the hand she had between hers when she spoke again,

"So what were you going to ask me about then? What did Nami say to you?"

"Hmm... Well, she said a lot of things. Like I said, some of it was like what you were saying earlier, about wanting to tell me something. I didn't really get any of that. She also mentioned about when I fought Arlong, said she wanted to thank me again. That was weird too. I've already told her before that she didn't have to thank me for that. She _is_ my _nakama,_ after all. We talked about being separated from everyone, and how we were excited to be back together. And we talked about how different everyone seemed. And..." He glanced upward again as he attempted to recall the conversation. "...I dunno, there was some other stuff that I think I'm forgetting. But I don't think any of that was what made her mad." He paused.

"Well..." Robin said, wanting genuinely to help, and realizing that understanding what had went wrong between them might help her avoid the same mistake, whatever that might've been, "from what I remember, you two seemed to be getting along well until right before she left." She pointed out with a knowing smile. "Do you remember what you were talking about right before then?"

"Hmm...yeah, kinda." He searched through his already hazy transcript of the events, "That was when she started acting kinda weird. Like... nervous... about something, maybe? She kept saying she had missed me a lot when I was gone, that she had really wanted to see me again."

"I see." Said Robin. "And what did you say to her?"

"Hmm?" He shrugged nonchalantly, "I dunno. I think I just said I had missed her too, that I'd really wanted to see her again too. Then she kept asking me if she had changed. Like, if she seemed different than before, to me."

"And what did you tell her?" Robin pressed.

"Well, I told her no, she still seemed like the same old Nami, to me." He said, doubtfully, as if part of him now sensed he screwed up somehow, but wasn't quite sure how. "Anyway, I don't think she liked that. She said I had noticed how Usopp and Franky were different, how come I didn't I think she had changed at all?" he began tallying off the rest of the dialogue line by line with the fingers of his free hand, without seeming to be aware of it.

"And I said, I guess she had changed too. And she said, 'changed how, be specific?' And I said, I guess she seemed stronger, but I wasn't sure how yet, cause I hadn't seen her fight yet. And then she called me a _baka_, I think." He frowned, as if even in retrospect, this seemed unfair. "And then she said, that wasn't what she had been talking about. So I asked her, well what was she talking about? And she said, like, didn't I think she looked any different than before?" He had run out of fingers on the one hand some time ago, and begun recycling through them over and over again. It wasn't clear if he was actually counting exchanges, or just doing it compulsively.

"And so I said, I guess maybe her hair seemed longer than before. And she said 'that's it?' Was that was all I could think of? And I said, what else did she want me to say? And then she said 'never mind, I was just a _baka_,' anyway, I wouldn't understand. I said, 'understand what?' She said, 'was I really that stupid? How could I not know what she meant by now?' And I said, why don't you just tell me, then?"

He took a deep breath, unaware of the growing amusement on his listener's face. _Silly Luffy, _she giggled to herself as she grasped that the story was more or less what she had predicted. _You really are hopeless. _Though, in all fairness, from what it sounded like, she supposed Nami wasn't much better in that respect. Funny how a girl so beautiful, smart and skilled at navigating at sea could flounder so uselessly in the pits of inexperience when it came to navigating romance.

"Then she said loved me, and then called me a big dumb idiot again, and a bunch of other things like that. Which I thought was totally mean." Said Luffy, pausing to sulk for a moment, oblivious to the significance of the first part of his statement relative to his childish concern about the insults. Robin's eyes had widened at the casual revelation of Nami's confession.

"Wait, Luffy. Go back for a moment." She interrupted, sure she had to clarify. "Nami told you she loved you?"

"Yeah, but then she said a bunch mean things –" She cut him off.

"Never mind that, Luffy. What did you say to her, when she told you that?" She pushed.

"Huh?" He hesitated, seeming genuinely confused. "Well I told her I loved her too, of course, she was my _nakama. _But she said that wasn't what she meant either, and called me a _baka_ again. And I said, ' well, what did she mean?', again, and she said was that really the only way I loved her? And I said 'what else was there?'...And then, she didn't really say anything, but she seemed really mad, and I think she left right after that." He lapsed into another long silence.

Even now she could see him struggling to understand what he had done wrong, with an innocent and earnest confusion that only made her love him even more. Even given his emotional thick-headedness, it was clear he felt guilty about hurting his navigator's feelings, and genuinely wanted to make sense of his mistake, so much so that she was hard-pressed to sympathize with Nami's impatience. She really needed to learn what Robin had more or less comprehended from the start: that loving someone as dense as Luffy entailed its own specific challenges – requiring a high level of tolerance, and a willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt in these situations – which, unless met properly, would stymie any kind of attempt to get closer to him. The fact of the matter was, his biggest flaw, and perhaps the part she loved about him most, was that he was pure-hearted in mind and heart alike, pretty much to the point of romantic obliviousness. The normal rules of courtship simply could not be expected to apply to him. Unfortunately, she had figured out early on, any woman who hoped to find a way to Luffy's heart would need to be prepared for an uphill battle. She would need to be ready to get her hands dirty, too, if she hoped to have any chance of winning him. There were no fairy tale narratives here. Unless that woman was willing to suffer the embarrassment and awkwardness of literally instilling Luffy's understanding of romance and sexual attraction from the ground up – and in effect, corrupting some of the very virtues about him that made him so easy for a woman to trust and love – she'd never stand a chance. But then again, knowing her navigator's short temper, and surprising adolescence when it came to matters of love, she supposed that it wasn't unexpected how things had turned out.

She squeezed his hand firmly and he seemed to recall that she was there, turning to look at her.

"Ne, Robin? So do you understand it? What did I do? Was it really my fault?" He asked her.

She did her best to smile understandingly at him.

"I'm afraid so, Luffy. From what you described, I think I understand pretty well what happened. And, it was definitely your mistake."

He frowned, but seemed to accept this assessment without any protest. His deep and abiding respect for her opinion was another thing she treasured about him.

"Really? Well, then what did I do? And how do I fix it?" He asked, deeply troubled now that he had confirmed that he had indeed messed up.

"Unfortunately, I can't tell you that, Luffy." She answered.

He grew more confused.

"Eh? Why not? I thought you said you understood?" He protested.

"I do. But I still can't tell you. It's not my place. I'm sorry, Luffy, but this is something that Nami has to explain to you herself. Do you understand?"

He grimaced for a moment before affirming his agreement.

"That said," she continued, "I may have said that it was your fault, but I don't think you need to worry too much about it. The fact is, these kinds of misunderstandings tend to happen all the time between men and women. Trust me when I say that Nami isn't nearly as angry with you as you think." She said with a reassuring smile.

"How do you know that?" He asked curiously.

She explained, "From what you told me, I get the feeling that she's actually probably more upset with herself than with you. I'm sure it won't be too long before she speaks to you again about this, so just wait until then, okay?"

Luffy seemed only partially comforted by her words.

"Herself? Why would she be mad at herself? Ugh. I don't get it at all." He huffed.

"I'm sorry. It's hard to explain. Honestly, the things women do or say won't always make sense to men. That's sort of just the way it's always been. But you'll just have to trust me, okay? Eventually Nami will realize that even though it's your fault, it's still her job to make you understand. So don't worry about it, okay? Just be the same Luffy that you always are. That's what she really needs from you, captain."

Luffy considered her words carefully, and then eventually nodded.

"Yosh! I can do that, I guess." He grinned broadly at her and then added, "Thanks, Robin! You're always explaining things so that I can understand...even when I don't really understand it."

"Glad I can help." She replied warmly, giving his hand another soft squeeze. She paused, and knew in that moment, exactly what she should say next. _Its my turn now_, she thought, and she told herself that unlike her fellow female straw hat, she wouldn't give up until Luffy had no misunderstandings at all about her intentions. If, after that, she was still rejected, she could accept that. But she wouldn't quit halfway through, with the meaning of things still hanging in the air.

"Ne, Luffy? About what I wanted to tell you earlier..." She paused, until she saw his attention was on her.

"Oh yeah! _Gomen_, Robin, I almost forgot. Did you want to tell me now?"

She smiled, as a fearless, almost predatory, courage took over her. _Tonight_. She told herself. _For tonight_, at least, _he would be hers_. _Even if it was just for this one moment._ She was suddenly high on a kind of feverish hope that made her feel, in that moment, emotionally invincible.

"Actually..." She paused to let go of his hand, and then edged even closer to him, until she sat as Nami had, shoulder to shoulder with him, and leaning into his side. It occurred to her that the height gap between them had closed some in the last two years. She was still taller than him, but only by two or three inches at the most. As it was, he was almost eye-to-eye with her. "It just occurred to me," She went on, "that it'd be much easier for me to show than tell you. Is that okay with you, Luffy?"

He eyed her silently for a moment and then nodded ever so slightly. "Sure." He said.

She smiled wordlessly at his assent, and then, without taking her eyes of his, lifted her right hand up to the side his face, gently placing her palm against his cheek. It was warm, and smooth, except for the curved abrasive edge of the scar under his right eye, which she traced wonderingly, with edge of her thumb. She could tell Luffy was surprised by her sudden caress, but he remained graciously passive, his smile unwavering, his eyes still focused on hers, conveying his deep and implicit trust in his _nakama_ and her intentions.

This was all the sign of consent she needed before she leaned her face into his, boldly crossing the last few inches of his personal space, her eyes closing just before she pressed her lips softly, deliberately against his.

For the next several moments, a white, numbing bliss pervaded her entire head, making it impossible to be truly conscious of what she was doing. She felt a small eternity go by during which her whole sphere of awareness, her entire existence, consisted only of the velvety movement of her mouth against his; the tip of her nose against his cheek; the feel of her fingers on the side of his face, pushing up into his hair; the smell of him filling her lungs; her other hand still held his, resting in his lap and was now clutching it tightly, as if seeking leverage.

Some immeasurable time later she managed to pull herself away slightly, her eyes still closed, and leaned forward until her temple rested softly against his forehead, the tip of her nose brushing his. She took another deep breath, soaking up his aroma once more, and ever so slightly nuzzling her forehead against his. With all her willpower, she resisted opening her eyes, as if by keeping them closed she could postpone forever the end of that moment, and the inevitability of having to confront his reaction to her decisive – and completely presumptuous – display of affection.

The illusion of timelessness was finally shattered when she heard Luffy clear his throat slightly.

"Ah...um...Robin?" He said in a voice that she was glad to hear seemed raspy and breathless enough to match the dryness she felt in her own throat.

"Mmmm...?" She squeezed her eyes even tighter, grimacing as she answered wordlessly. Inside she was bracing, as though against a physical impact, for the uncertain repercussions of what she had just done.

_This was it_, she thought to herself. This was where he started to apologize. Told her he didn't mean for her to misunderstand. Explained he didn't think this was a good idea. Reminded her that they were captain and crewmate, that he loved her as a _nakama_, as a big sister, as a dear friend, but not like this. She wondered how long it might be before the memory of this awkward incident was behind them.

"Ne...Robin...what...what was that?"

Her brow furrowed at his question. That had certainly not been what she expected him to say. Forcing herself to face the unavoidable, her eyes fluttered open and she looked up from the sight of the massive, cross-shaped scar carved fiercely across his sculpted torso, peering at his face through her eyelashes.

"What do you mean, Luffy? It's...it's exactly what you think. I love you... that's what I wanted to say. Not just as a _nakama,_ and not just as your friend. Not like a brother. I really and truly...desperately...love you. I'm..." she choked a bit, but pushed through determinedly, "...I'm sorry if that made you uncomfortable... but I really didn't know any other way to say it more clearly to you. That's why I just decided to show you... Are you...upset?"

"I'm not upset." Replied Luffy. "I just don't understand...what...what was that you just did...?"

Robin finally pulled her head away from his and stared in serious consternation at him. _Was he letting her on?_ She thought incredulously.

"What do you mean...what don't you understand, Luffy?" She asked calmly, steeling herself emotionally in case this was some convoluted attempt to let her down gently.

"That thing you just did with...with your mouth..." He went on sounding more confused by the second, "Why did you do that?"

It finally dawned on her, something so dubious as to defy to belief. _He couldn't...could he? _She placed her other hand gently around his face, so that she was cradling it deftly between both palms, as though she could hardly believe he was real.

"Luffy...do you mean to tell me...you've never... kissed anyone before?" She asked very carefully, trying to keep the doubt out of her voice, keep her tone as neutral as possible.

Luffy eyes never left hers as he slowly shook his head.

"Is that what it's called?" He asked.

Try as she did to keep her expression blank and non-judgmental, she could not stop her eyes from widening in astonishment. She let go of her captain's face and swallowed stiffly with the sudden understanding that she actually taken her captain's very first kiss, blinking back the shocked tears that swelled briefly in her eyes.

"Ne, Robin!" Luffy said quickly, his voice twisted with concern at her reaction, "What's wrong? Did I say something bad, again? I'm sorry! Please don't cry!"

"No, not at all...Its just..." She laughed softly as she wiped away the moisture from her cheeks. "I'm just really surprised, is all... And, I'm just...really happy that I got to have your first time. You definitely didn't do anything wrong this time." She reassured him.

He watched her warily, as if not entirely convinced he wasn't still somehow upsetting her. She decided to tease him a little, hoping to distract him with some levity.

"Still, Luffy, I really can't believe you've never kissed anyone before. I really thought you'd be more experienced." She said with smirk.

"Eh?" He said with his usual perplexed pout. "I can't help it. I never did that with anyone before. I think I maybe saw Ace had a magazine once with pictures in it..." he recalled cryptically and she chose not to press him for more details. "But...Robin, does this mean we have to get married now?"

She experienced yet another pang of surprise – for what felt like the fiftieth time that evening at least – at her captain's unceasingly entertaining capacity for...misguided... ideas about the world. This time she didn't even try to suppress her chuckle.

"No, captain, we don't have to get married. Not unless you want to." She explained patiently. "In fact, nothing has to change at all between us, if you don't want it to. But just answer me this, Luffy, how did you feel about it?" She asked.

"Hmm?" He seemed to be trying to get a lot straight in his head, and was only barely keeping up with her

"The kiss." She clarified, "Did you like it?"

"Oh..." He considered this for a moment, "Yeah, I guess so. It was kind of weird. But not in a bad way... You smell nice, Robin..." He said the last with a timidity, that she could not help but giggle about.

"I see. I'm glad you didn't dislike it...and that you enjoy my smell...I like the way you smell too, Luffy..." This seemed to please him. She wondered if anyone had ever told him that before. "But do you understand why I did it? Why I kissed you?" she knew she was making him uncomfortable by forcing so many questions on him in succession, but she had promised herself that she would see this through.

He thought about it awhile and then answered, "Because you love me? You said that, right?" He asked as if he was unsure if he remembered things correctly, like a school child trying hard to answer his teacher's question accurately.

She smiled encouragingly. _God, but he was actually even more endearing than she had ever imagined. _

"Yes, that's right. But do you also remember that I said this love was different than how someone loves their _nakama? _Or their family?"

He nodded again.

"Well...what do you think about that? Have you ever felt that way about someone before? Do you..._have you possibly...ever felt that way about me_?" The last question came out as a nervous whisper, for she was unsure her captain even grasped how much she was hanging onto his answer.

Another long pause, and then Luffy shrugged, with his trademark honesty,

"I dunno, Robin. I mean, I definitely love you as a _nakama_... but I don't really think I get this other kind of love. I mean, I'm guessing it's like the kind of love between a mom and dad, or the kind that makes people get married?" He looked at her. The last part of his hypothesis had sounded reluctant, and she tried to answer him as diplomatically as possible. _Guess I shouldn't be surprised someone as adventurous and free-spirited as Luffy seems to have reservations about marriage..._

"It can. It's true that people who get married often do it because they love each other. Just like people who decide to become mothers and fathers, are often married. But that doesn't have to be the case. If it does happen, it's usually much later on, after two people have been in love a really long time. But there are lots of people who fall in love at some point, but don't necessarily end up getting married or having children." She tried her best to explain, finding it ironic how difficult it could be to describe a concept that one usually considered universal knowledge beyond a certain age.

She could see Luffy really struggling to make sense of her explanation, with a serious effort that made her fall in love with him all over again.

"But then, Robin?" he asked. "What is it that's special about this love? How is it different than the other kinds of love...I just don't get that part."

She sighed, and did her best to put it in terms that Luffy would understand.

"I guess...the simplest way to explain it is that this kind of love is the kind that makes you want to kiss people. " She tried.

She saw a light seem to go off in his head.

"So, you kissed me because you love me? And also, that love is different than just _nakama_ love _because_ you want to kiss me?" The recursive logic seemed to work in his head, much to her bemusement. Ironically, she considered it one of the best illustrations of just how irrational the emotion she was talking about really was.

"And... do other things" She continued. "Kissing is part of it. But it's also a desire to be around that person as often as possible. And not just around that person, usually, but _alone_ with that person. Usually, this kind of love makes you want to do things like, hold that person's hand." She noticed him glance down at her lap, where she had commandeered his hand in hers. "Basically, this kind of love, makes you want to touch the other person a lot. It comes, at least partly, from being attracted to someone else's body. Which means that you usually enjoy looking at them, and again, want get as close to them as possible, and generally be able to touch them a lot.

"But it can also come from other, non-physical things about that person, like the sound of their voice, or the way they smell, or laugh, or how funny you think they are, or the fact that they make you feel better when you're sad or lonely. Usually, being around that person makes you happy or excited, but it can also make you feel anxious or afraid, especially if the other person doesn't know that you feel this way and you're afraid that they don't feel the same kind of love for you." She had realized the best way to express it was just to tell Luffy exactly all the things he made her feel. He would either recognize it in the end, or he wouldn't.

She let him really absorb her description, slowly work through the implications of all the things romantic love could entail, hoping in the end, he'd be able to make the most informed decision he could about it all.

"Does that help you understand a little, Luffy?"

"I think so. Its basically a _mystery feeling_, is what you're saying?"

Robin laughed as he fell back on his go-to explanation for hard-to-understand concepts ranging from academic subjects to toe-socks.

"Actually yes, Luffy. That's actually probably the best way there is to describe it."

He considered that a second and then asked.

"And that's the love that you feel for me?"

She nodded noiselessly.

"And...you want to know if I feel that way about you?" He reiterated.

She nodded again. "I do. But I understand if you're not really sure..." She said, offering him a way out of the question if he needed.

His next words seemed to be chosen very carefully.

"Ne, Robin...you said that sometimes this feeling makes you afraid, right? About if the other person doesn't feel the same way...? If I didn't...feel that way...would you be sad?" He turned a probing look on her face, as if mustering all his capacity for reading facial expressions.

Robin felt her hopefulness sink sharply. Here the conversation had gotten very dicey. She knew that if she wasn't careful, Luffy might end up saying things he didn't mean just to spare the feelings of a _nakama _she knew he dearly loved...though not in the way she hoped. But she also knew that Luffy might just be asking this to clarify the meaning of his answer.

"Luffy..." She said seriously, "I don't really want you to think about that when you answer my question...Its true...I'd be sad if you didn't feel the same way...but...that's a part of the risk someone takes when they confess these feelings to someone. I am prepared for that, if that's you how you feel. The fact is, I would be _more _upset if you said you loved me that way too just because you wanted to protect me from getting hurt...do you understand?"

Luffy seemed to accept this. "I think so..."

"So just answer me as honestly you can, okay? That's what would make me happiest. I'll even make it simpler for you. For instance," she reached her hand up to his face again.

"If I were to ask to kiss you again...how would you feel about that?"

Luffy smiled at her... "I'd be okay with that."

Her heart raced with his answer, and she pressed on.

"And... If I asked you if you wanted to do some of the things I said...would that be okay too? Like, if I wanted to be able to kiss you... a lot more... as much as possible? And spend time with you a lot... just the two of us... holding hands like this... and talking...and...and touching you... How would you feel about that?"

"You mean...other than just on the face?"

She smiled, "Well...we could start slow. We wouldn't have to do anything you were uncomfortable with...but...eventually, yes...I'd want to be able to touch you everywhere...at least when we're alone together."

Luffy seemed to ponder this prospect as if it were something amazing that he had never even thought of.

"I'd like that... As long as it was with Robin... I think It'd be okay." He said simply.

She felt another little wave of joy flood her heart.

"And me? Luffy?" She gently lifted the hand of his that she was still holding and pressed it over her heart, hoping that Luffy wasas aware of the feel of her breasts cushioning his palm as she was. "If I asked you to touch me, too? How would that make you feel?"

Luffy swallowed, clearly nervous, but did not seem to pull away from her boldness.

"You...you want me to touch you too, Robin? Like this?" He asked skeptically, as if unable to believe she wasn't tricking him.

"Yes." She answered without hesitation. "Like this, and... more, too. If its you Luffy, I'd let you touch me anywhere... Anywhere you want. "

She watched the gears of his mind turn slowly with the prospect of the permission she was granting him, felt a pleasant shiver run through her, as she caught his eyes slip quickly, guiltily over the curves of her body. If he thought she had missed his once-over, he was mistaken. _I knew it was buried under there somewhere, Luffy,_ she thought with some satisfaction. He hesitated as he asked again,

"And...that would make you... happy? If I touched you?"

She giggled again at his nervous skepticism. She couldn't be sure in the moonlight, but she could've sworn he was blushing.

"Eh, it would make me very happy, Luffy. Because you're the one I love."

Luffy seemed to speak, slowly and warily, as if afraid he might be walking into a self-incriminating trap.

"Well...if it would make Robin happy...then that would make me happy, too. So I could do that. But Robin... can we make sure Sanji doesn't know? "

Robin burst into giggles. "Yes, perhaps that's for the best..." She agreed, unable to stop the tide of glorious happiness that was swelling up inside her. Luffy noticed that what he'd said had made her glad, and he joined her laughter.

As if of the same mind, at that moment, they both leaned towards each other, and pressed their foreheads together once more, each looking up to stare into the other's eyes in a long, contented silence.

"Luffy?" She finally asked.

"Mmm?"

"I'm going to kiss you again, okay?" She forewarned him with a loving smile.

"Yosh. That's okay with me." He grinned back at her.

"Oh and Luffy... you should try kissing back this time, if you like?" She added encouragingly.

"Okay...but I don't really know how. How should I do that?"

She giggled. "How about you start by just doing whatever feels natural to you?" She suggested. And then she wasted no time slipping her hand behind his neck and into his hair, pulling his mouth towards hers, closing her eyes.

This time around the kiss was definitely different; longer, wetter, more urgent. At first, Luffy struggled with his earlier passivity, but after few tentative movements of his lips against hers, he caught on quickly. Soon his hand found its way into her hair as well, copying her actions, and he was even beginning to pull her face gently into his. Meanwhile he pressed his lips even more firmly against hers until soft, satisfied moans begin to slip from Robin's mouth.

Inside her head, a hurricane had spun up, and her capacity to think straight had long flown out her ears. _Jesus, but he was a fast learner, _was the last coherent thought she had before she realized she had pushed him flat against the floor and wrapped her other hand around his red lapel, and was literally attacking his lips roughly, eagerly.

She finally regained some of her senses and moved back just slightly, her breathing heavy; her eyes slipped open to see that he was staring up at her, apparently marveling at her forcefulness. She stared sheepishly down at him, and was about to apologize for getting a little carried away. Instead she had a small thrill as she felt him hesitantly close the space between their lips with short, inviting, after-kisses, as though disappointed that their lip lock had ended so soon.

It seemed that in the last few minutes her captain had become considerably less ambivalent about the idea of kissing her, she thought with an ecstatic self-satisfaction. More than willing to oblige his newfound interest, she smiled into his eyes as she pushed her lips against his once more, this time more tenderly, before pulling away to whisper to him in a hushed breathlessness.

"That was...very good, Luffy. You seem to be improving at kissing very quickly," She praised. She had pushed herself up onto her hands, which lay planted to either side of him now, pinning him between her arms. Her body had climbed over his and partially straddled him during her earlier inhibition-shattering spell of desire, their legs intimately tangled. For awhile she hovered over his body, looking down at his face as it appeared in the moonlight, framed by a dark curtain of her dangling hair.

Luffy gave her an impish grin.

"Yeah, I think I kinda get how it's supposed to work now..." Taking her wrists in his hands, he pushed himself slowly upright, his face closing in as he sat up to meet her. At first she thought he would kiss her again, felt a rush of anticipation as she preemptively closed her eyes. Instead, once more, he pushed his forehead against hers. Opening her eyes to see him staring at her face, she trembled with self-conscious surprise when he reached up with one hand to push aside the ebony bangs draped partly over her face.

"Ne, Robin. Its weird, cause I never thought about doing it before...but...this kissing stuff... it actually feels pretty amazing, huh? I think...I think maybe the reason it feels so nice is because its with you."

"Luffy..." Robin was completely unable to express how happy his words had made her feel.

"And the things you talked about...spending time together...and touching?" He went on, "When I think about it, it sounds kind of exciting... it makes me feel... kind of like being on a new adventure! I'm not sure if it's the same feeling you're talking about...but I do think I want to know more. So I guess what I'm saying is... will you please show me all about this kind of love, Robin? I want to learn everything there is to know about this mystery feeling!"

She laughed with delight, marveling at how articulate her captain could be when he really wanted to.

"Alright then..." Robin replied with a smile. "I'll see what I can do. If you want, we can start with some more lessons right now?" She offered.

"Yosh. Okay then. Just tell me what to do." He said grinningly.

She smiled playfully at him, stole a quick, final kiss, and then got to her feet, pulling him with her.

"Follow me," She said simply, hardly able to keep the excitement out of her voice as she led him by the hand back down into the ship. Without another word, she hurried across the helm deck, towing a bemused Luffy behind her, as she set off for the privacy of the ship's library, with the full intention of making this night one of the most memorable of her captain's life.

* * *

**Footnotes**: So, I edited it a little, corrected some typos and grammar things, but didn't have the time to really cut it down. Still, that's beginning of it. I ran out of steam before I could get to more the foreshadowed...intimate...scene with Luffy and Robin, figured its already long enough as it is, really have to break it up at some point. But that is forthcoming. And will probably cross over into lime-y whime-y, if not lemony, territory. Bewarned. You're about to be subjected to poorly written smut.


	2. Chapter 2 - Sex and Secrets

**Author's notes**: So here's the second chapter. It's also almost as long-winded and overwritten as the last, though much less family-friendly. Basically, I got tired of wading through so much internal dialogue just for some romantic catharsis, and jumped straight to penning Luffy's deflowering. Hope its bearable. Also, thanks to everyone who left reviews, it really helped me stay motivated to keep going. Thanks especially to mister Sagitarius, whose thoughtful critique was well-received. To address some of your valid points: 1) I draw my protocol for delineating characters' thoughts from the books I've read, mostly fantasy and sci fi novels (a la Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time) where thoughts are italicized but left unbracketed by quotation marks in order to specifically distinguish them from spoken words. Therefore I always end up using double quotes for direct speech and single quotes for speech repeated from another character. Still, I do see your point and will chalk it up to a difference in styles. 2) Also, to your very astute observation about Luffy's failure to register's Nami's love for him as the same as Robin's, I offer two different but related (and debatable) explanations: Firstly, my interpretation of Luffy's personality has always focused less on his obvious idiocy and more on his ability to focus most or all of his awareness on the circumstances of his present moment. His character, to me, has a kind of Forrest Gump-like zen about him, which I imagine made it possible for him - upon being told by Robin_ (_whose opinion he trusts unquestioningly) that he doesn't need to worry about Nami's confession until she brings it up again - to set aside his problems with his navigator for later. That led me to think that Robin's far more physical confession would, I feel, completely occupy his attention and force him to confront the immediate circumstances of her advances. Larger, second-order thoughts about how similar the feelings Robin was describing were to what Nami had mentioned before are connections that, while I think Luffy is capable of, would be the furthest thing from his mind after experiencing his first kiss. 2) That said, I also don't want to rule out the possibility that Luffy has indeed made this connection in the back of his mind, but that it hasn't been yet mentioned in the narrative thus far, in order to leave room for that epiphany to come into play in his forthcoming encounter with Nami. Furthermore, we still don't know yet that Luffy quite understands all the implications of romantic love, since Robin reduced it into very simplistic and physical terms in the last chapter, a fact that I hope to bring to bear in the third installment. I don't know if any of that satisfies you, but that's my best logic. Regardless, all (ten) readers are likely to be disappointed by this chapter if they came to this fan-fic looking for a well-developed plot. Let me be clear: the primary and ongoing intent of this story is to be semi-canon, harem-smut wrapped in a _passable _plot. I claim nothing more, or less, than this mantle. That said, if that's up your alley, by all means, enjoy! Happy 2014!

* * *

In the nocturnal hush of the earliest hours of the maritime morning, two Straw Hats stole quietly across the lawn deck of the Thousand Sunny, their way lit only by the soft-glowing orb pitched high above in the inky firmament almost directly overhead. Their hands were linked; one, slightly taller, her curvaceous hourglass figure accentuated by the clinging sea breeze, conspicuous even in the dim lighting, moving with an alluring and impossibly feminine grace as she pulled along a slender young man, the silhouette of his head framed by an infamous thatched sun hat, his free hand securing it against the rush of the night air. They wound their way up one of the staircases to the ship's rear landing, the lady at the fore looking back to the owner of her affection trailing obligingly in her wake, as she bestowed on him a mysterious, inviting curl of the lips.

Monkey D. Luffy, for his part, gazed back with mute wonder at his elegant, dark-haired crew mate_, _appearing even more stunning than usual in the surreal moonlight. There was definitely something about the graceful sway of Robin's hips as she strode assertively through the darkness, all playful smiles and sultry seduction, that was mesmerizing in a way he had noticed instinctively before (despite what some believed, there _was _a heterosexual male psyche buried subconsciously under all his naivety), but had never been allowed to openly admire until now. A memory from two-years ago flickered into his thoughts, triggered by the context in a way that his conscious mind couldn't quite keep up with.

* * *

"Gomen_, captain. Is there something I can help you with?"_

"_Oi, Robin. What are you doing?" Luffy approached his crew's newest member on the otherwise empty deck of the Going Merry, a look of childish curiosity plastered across his face. _

_The lovely Nico Robin eyed her captain with the same wary, if tolerant, neutrality that she normally reserved for the flirtatious banter and ogling stares of the ship's cook. Unbeknownst to Luffy, she was currently questioning her initial appraisal of him as too oblivious for her womanly charms to be advantageous with. _

"_Well... since everyone but you and _Tanuki_-san are still out in town, and it seems we'll be here for awhile, I had planned on sunbathing some." She answered serenely. When Luffy continued to stare blankly at her in a way he was, of course, completely unaware was making her slightly uncomfortable, she added coolly, "I wasn't necessarily looking for an audience, though..." The last thing she needed was for her new captain to turn out to be just a more repressed pervert than Sanji. _

"_Ne, but what's that stuff you have there?" Luffy asked, completely missing her hint and scratching his scalp as he pointed to the tube from which she was squeezing a dab of some fragrant creamy substance into her palm._

"_This?" she said, as she spread the cream across her hands in smooth circular motions, her tone doubtful, as though she were reevaluating, yet again, in the brief time she'd spent with the Straw Hat crew, her estimates of her captain's intelligence. "Its just lotion. My plan is to tan, rather than burn." She explained. _

_She affected an air of nonchalance as she began applying the cream in front of him, up and down her unbearably long legs, smoothing it slowly across her silky, bare thighs. The Demon Child of Ohara (whose adolescence-referencing alias it had never been more abundantly clear was long since outgrown) wore a black two-piece bathing suit that left little of her ample endowments to the imagination and which the majority of teenage boys other than the captain of the Straw Hat pirates would have found irresistibly magnetic to the eyes. _

_Robin finished covering one leg, lowered it back to the floor, and proceeded to her other, placing it with bent knee atop her flattened tanning-chair. It didn't seem that Luffy was admiring her curves however, when he asked._

"_Why does it smell like that, though? It smells tasty."_

_Robin gave him a puzzled look, then seemed to understand. _

"_Oh, that. It has cocoa butter mixed in. It does smell rather like a baking ingredient, I suppose." She was applying it across each slender arm now. She glanced over at her captain, seeing that he was watching her hands moving up and down her limbs with that same disconcerting inquisitiveness. "Would you like some as well, captain? You don't seem like you burn as easily I do, but there's plenty left, if you want."_

"_But why do you rub it on yourself? You said you didn't want to burn. You're not going to cook yourself, are you?" Luffy questioned ridiculously, without any idea how absurd his notion sounded._

_Robin laughed as she finished coating her narrow shoulders, and began dabbing at her nose and cheeks._

"_No captain-san, this is specifically to _prevent_ me from being baked, see? If I lie too long in the sun without it, I tend to turn a particularly unpleasant shade of red." She answered with mirth._

_Luffy tilted his head at her._

"_But that stuff stops that?" He asked skeptically._

"_Eh, indeed. I never travel without it. I'm surprised that you've haven't seen it before." She said, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice._

"_So it's a mystery cream..." Luffy nodded to himself with comprehension._

_Robin giggled again. "I suppose you could call it that." She conceded. She finished with the bottle and handed it to her fascinated captain for his inspection, meanwhile pulling her tresses back into bunch and tying them above her neck before she sat down at the edge of her tanning bed, stretching a towel over its length and then laying herself across it on her stomach. Folding her arms under her head and turning to rest the side of her face on her hands, she looked back at her captain. _

_Luffy took several deep sniffs of the open bottle, the sweet aroma making his mouth water. Below him Robin piped up, her tone suddenly different somehow from a few moments before._

"_Ne, captain... you can actually help me out, if you like. " She crooned at him with a strange smile that Luffy was entirely too innocent to decode._

"_Eh? How?"_

"_Can you cover my backside for me? I have a hard time reaching." She asked with an all-too-deliberate offhandedness. Had Luffy possessed a higher capacity for logical inference, he might've deduced that no one with Robin's particular set of handy supernatural powers would ever need assistance self-applying lotion. Instead he stared for a few moments down at the shapely form of his _nakama_, arrayed before him._

_A confusing kind of hesitation that he had never felt before was plaguing him at that moment. He had no idea why, but the sight of so much of Robin's bare, pale skin, glistening in the sun with a buttery sheen, not to mention the thought of touching it, seemed to be engendering an unfamiliar restlessness within his body, and he swallowed slowly as he asked,_

"_You want me to put it on you? On your back?" _

"_If its not too much trouble." Robin replied with well-concealed amusement as she turned her head away to rest on the other side of her face. _

_There was another moment or two of silence as Luffy reexamined the tube in his hand, turning it upside down over his other palm, as he'd seen Robin do._

"_Is there something wrong, captain?" Robin asked. "No need to be nervous."_

_Luffy crushed the tube in his fist with a complete absence of finesse, sending a ghastly stream of the lotion spurting into his palm, tossing the now-disfigured bottle over one shoulder. _

"_Yosh. I'm not nervous. I got it now." He responded. As he tried imitating the woman's early rolling hand movements, gobs of excess cream oozed over edge of his palms, dripping wastefully onto the deck. Moving his hands over Robin's prone figure, a large splotch of the ointment dribbled clumsily between his fingers, splattering across her smooth back. The bikini-clad archaeologist jerked with surprise. _

"_Luffy?! Are you sure you didn't pour too much?" Robin asked with a hint of annoyance._

_But Luffy wasn't listening. The toned, reflexive ripple of her body's startled spasm had been utterly distracting for a moment, suddenly intensifying his bizarre feelings of arousal._

Maybe...maybe I'm just hungry?_ He reasoned, turning his eyes to his cream-caked hands, and deciding then to satisfy his initial curiosity, bringing one of his fingers to lips and popping it in his mouth all at once. _

_His gag was instantaneous._

"_ACK! Gross!" He spluttered with disgust at the instantly and unequivocally terrible flavor, spitting the taste of it from his mouth, a large wad of his spittle grazing his _nakama's_ back._

"_Luffy!" Robin raised her voice, sitting up with alarm at his outburst, and pulling her towel up to cover herself instinctively. "Did you actually try to eat some?!" she demanded with disbelief._

"_Its nasty! It doesn't taste anything like butter!" Luffy whined, holding his slathered, dripping hands helplessly in front of himself._

"_I told you! Its lotion, not butter!" She scolded with more than a hint of exasperation. "Please tell me you didn't spit on me... " She wiped at her back with the towel._

"_I don't think it was a lot." Replied Luffy meekly, as if it were some kind of consolation. "Are you mad, Rob – "_

"_Oi! What's going on here?!" Shouted an already angry-looking Nami as she emerged on deck from the wooden ramp leading off the pier. A grocery-laden Sanji stood at her side and was now taking in the scene before them – the seemingly irritated swim suit-wearing Robin sitting upright, towel drawn protectively around herself, the guilty sunscreen-covered Luffy with his hands held incriminatingly in the air – and a slowly dawning rage twisted the curls of his eyebrows as he let his bags of produce fall to the floor._

"_LUFFY, YOU DIRTY BASTARD! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY ROBIN-CHWAN!?" He roared, advancing on his captain with flames in his eyes._

"_Robin-neesan! Are you alright?! Did Luffy try to do something perverted?" Nami darted to her sister Straw Hat's side, though she asked the last question with some incredulity, as if, knowing Luffy, she had a hard time believing the story her eyes had surmised. _

"_I'm fine, I assure you, Navigator-san." Robin answered quickly, realizing her practical joke had gotten a little out of hand. Behind Nami, her captain was being violently throttled by the cook, his head flailing back and forth with a whiplash that would've certainly made a quadriplegic out of anyone without a rubber spine. Sanji continued to strangle Luffy as he turned his face back to Robin, his expression making a quantum transition from a fang-bearing growl, to syrupy, hearts-in-his-eyes coo._

"_Robin-chwan! I pray you're unharmed! You must've been so frightened by our dumbass of a captain!" He re-donned his enraged snarl as he turned back to Luffy. "You sick bastard! How DARE YOU LAY YOUR FILTHY HANDS ON ROBIN-CHAN!" Then he was all besotted, sycophantic smiles once more as he faced the sunbathing woman, "Don't worry, Robin-chwaaan~! I'll be sure to thoroughly punish this brute!"_

"_Oi! You guys got it all wron –" Luffy tried, but Sanji cut him off._

"_QUIET, YOU SCOUNDREL! I'LL GET TO YOU!" _

"_There's really no need for this, Navigator-san, Cook-san. Luffy's telling the truth, he didn't do anything untoward. He was merely somewhat inept at applying sunscreen to himself and was asking me for help." Explained Robin smoothly._

_The two looked suspiciously back at Luffy._

"_That's not wha –" He started, only to be interrupted again_

"_Ne, Captain?" Robin interjected firmly, "I think you understand now, that it's a little troublesome to ask a woman to put lotion on you? And also that just because its called 'cocoa butter', doesn't mean its edible, right?"_

_Luffy hesitated, and then nodded. "Tastes gross..."_

"_Oi, you monkey." Sanji finally stopped strangling his captain, mitigating his punishment to a painful drilling of his knuckles into Luffy's skull. "Didn't anyone ever teach you not to ask a beautiful, delicate flower to do something so rude?" _

"_I'll give him a talking to, Sanji." Nami finally interrupted._

"_Eh? But you needn't trouble yourself with this _baka_, Nami-swaaan! I'll take care of beating some manners into him!" The blonde-haired chef reassured her._

"_I think it'd be a better idea if you got started making lunch, don't you think, Sanji?" She responded diplomatically, "I'm pretty starving, aren't you, Robin?" She turned to her fellow female Straw Hat._

"_Eh, definitely. I would be thrilled to have some iced tea, too, if you have it?" Robin requested with a winning smile. _

_Sanji wavered only a moment, before releasing Luffy's limp form and turning instantly into his wavy, obsequious, singsong version._

"_Haaaaaiiiiii! Right away then, Nami-swaan, Robin-chwaan! I'll make a meal to fill your hearts and your souls! One iced-tea to quench an angel's thirst, coming right up!" He tornadoed off to the kitchen without another word._

"_Lunch!?" Luffy said, his head popping up at the mention of one of his favorite words. _

"_You! Come with me!" Said Nami menacingly, dragging her unhappy captain off by the ear, as he looked back over her shoulder at Robin's apologetic smile. _

_When he and his navigator were alone on the other side of the ship, Luffy immediately began complaining._

"_Nami! It's not true! Robin was the one who asked me to put the butter on her! Then I tried it and it tasted terrible! Not like butter at all."_

"Baka_!" the fiery-tempered redhead admonished. "Even if that's what happened you should just be thankful a lady as beautiful and sophisticated as Robin-nee-san would offer you such an honor! You certainly don't deserve it. I'm not surprised an idiot like you managed to mess that up, either. And where did you get the ridiculous idea to taste that stuff?"_

"_It smelled good." Luffy said simply. "I can't help that I messed up, I never put butter on anyone before. You believe me, though?"_

_Nami sighed. "I suppose. It does seem unlike you to wear sun block yourself; especially considering you think its something you can eat. But you know Luffy, the offer to apply lotion to a beautiful lady doesn't come by very often, especially for a _baka_ like you." She said, changing gears suddenly from admonishment to teasing. "If you're not prepared for it next time, you'll miss out." _

_She smirked as she went on. "In fact, I'm even feeling sorry for you. So...um... if you need a beautiful lady to... practice with... for the future, I suppose I'd let you try on me next time. I won't even charge you (very much). How's that? Pretty generous, aren't I?" She tried to smile seductively at him, but Luffy just inserted a finger in his ear as he stared blankly back at her._

"_Why the heck would I pay to do that?" He asked dumbly._

_He barely had time to notice Nami's sudden scowl, before his head was spinning from a stinging slap. _

"BAKA_!" She shouted as she stormed off._

* * *

Snapping out of his thoughts as Robin came to stop before a door that Luffy clearly recognized as the entrance to the kitchen, the pirate captain felt a thrill of puzzled excitement.

"Ne, Robin? Where are we going? Are we stopping to eat something?" He asked hopefully.

The gorgeous scholar's musical laughter only confused him more.

"Just somewhere with some privacy. Don't worry; I think you'll forget all about food in a little bit." Robin replied mysteriously, "_And if you still want to eat something later_..." The last part trailed away in a breathless whisper, the filthy, none-too-subtle vulgarity of her double-entendre flying completely under Luffy's innocent radar, though it would've shocked anyone else who knew the normally polite and reserved Robin. Then again, Luffy also couldn't know that it hadbeen years since this woman's last physical encounter with a man, and no matter what her typically demure demeanor might disguise, she did indeed have pent-up desires with which she dealt.

As she pushed open the entrance, all but yanking the bewildered Luffy in after her, she turned to enfold his neck in her arms as soon as they were inside, shoving the door closed with his body as she pressed him against its frame and attacked his mouth with impatient kisses.

Luffy was floored. He had, of course, never witnessed the cool and collected older woman exhibit this kind of raw, animalistic, passion before, but it took only seconds before her prediction started coming true and his passing interest in a midnight snack dissipated amidst the awakening of another of his body's long-dormant physical needs. They lasted a few seconds like that, Robin pressing her softness eagerly against her captain, lips lost in a fiercely sensual exchange, before she tore herself away to whisper hoarsely at him.

"Come on..." She grinned mischievously, "Not here. I don't want anyone to walk in on us."

She resumed hauling the nonplussed Luffy along by his wrist, through the mess hall, past the dining table and kitchen counters, to the base of the ladder at the back of the room that led up onto the landing of the rear, rooftop deck.

As she started nimbly up the rungs, she peered down to her shadowing captain.

"Follow me. And no peeking at my behind," She warned jokingly, "Its nothing you won't get to see soon enough..."

Luffy had no more than an obscure inkling of what the willowy woman meant, but he found his anticipation of this unknown growing, vaguely aware that Robin must have something in mind that would be an entirely new experience for him.

_If it's anything like kissing... _He thought to himself, and that same curious thrill raced through him as he followed dutifully up the ladder after his _nakama._

Once outside through the open hatch, Robin turned around to offer Luffy a brief hand exiting the narrow space, not wanting to spare even a moment as she kicked the covering back closed and started hastily toward the rear of the landing with her captain tagging along behind, crossing over the bridge to the balcony of the observation deck. At the entrance to the library, she paused a heartbeat, once again twisting around to meet her lover, turning the door handle just as she faced him, causing the door to give way, and sending them they all but tumbling over each other backwards into the room.

As Robin regained her balance just in time to spin them around and nudge the door shut behind her, she seized Luffy by the collar of his cardigan, and resumed her earlier shower of lip-caresses, this time falling into briefer, more frequent sequences of kisses. Her captain, for his part, surrendered to her lead as he struggled to keep up with her long-withheld affections.

They remained enjoined like this as they stumbled their way over to the edge of the circular room to fall unceremoniously onto the plush bench lining the walls.

Here Robin's desperate displays of desire seem to finally settle slightly into a more comfortable rhythm of slower, drawn out strokes of her lips against his, as if satisfied for the first time that nothing would interrupt her blissful rendezvous now. Her hands shifted from his lapels, one sliding to the side to grip his shoulder, the other drifting downward, fingers widespread, to feel at the firmness of his torso, tracing the hardened ridges of his abs, but hesitating just before the waistline of his shorts.

After a minute or so, they finally parted for air, the both of them panting with roused passion as they paused to eye one another, Robin wearing a look of hopeless infatuation and exultant yearning, Luffy with breathless, wide-eyed wonder.

The break seemed to be a moment Robin was looking for, as she raised a husky and trembling voice.

"Luffy... I... can't even explain to you, how happy I feel right now... How excited you make me." She paused as she examined his innocent brown eyes.

Luffy grinned at her. "Me too, Robin. Kissing... I've never felt anything like this. I didn't know there was something this... amazing... you could do with someone." He told her.

She did her best to master the elated giggle that bubbled up inside her as she pressed her forehead intimately against his.

"Eh, Luffy. But believe me when I say there's more... a lot more that I really, really want to share with you." She said.

"Better than kissing?" He marveled with skeptical awe, "You mean, like the touching you talked about?"

She laughed softly, "Yes...that and more. But," She tried to imbue her tone with some seriousness as she went on, "at the same time, I want to make sure you understand. If this feels like things are moving too quickly... or if at any point you feel like I'm asking too much of you, too fast, all you have to do is say so, Luffy. I don't want you to feel pressured to do anything you're not ready for, or that feels uncomfortable. Normally..."

She paused with a shy embarrassment that seemed so strange for her.

"Normally two people would wait a lot longer before they did some of the things I want to do, especially if its your first time. So, you don't have to feel bad in any way if you change your mind about things part way through, because the truth is, I've been pushing you a lot tonight. And that's...just because... you make me feel so...incredible, Luffy... that it's hard to help myself. But that doesn't mean that I'm not asking you, and that you can't say no at any point, okay?" She looked at him with a reassuring smile, and he eyed her with that same curiousity before nodding earnestly to her.

As she saw this, her smile split even wider, and she closed her eyes and nuzzled his nose a moment, adding,

"That said, once I get started, unless you tell me to, I'm definitely not going to be able to stop. So... just try to relax and do what feels natural. And feel free to tell me what things you like or dislike and I'll try my best to make you feel good. I really want your first time to be a good experience."

After that she leaned forward once more and resumed her gentle kissing.

Luffy tried his best to return the kisses skillfully, relieved to be eliciting the soft, pleased, moans he had heard from her earlier, while his ill-equipped imagination attempted vainly to imagine what awesome and terrifying things Robin might have in store. Finally, she leaned one last press of her lips into his mouth, and pulled back from him suddenly, leaving a wondering Luffy gazing expectantly at her, until, just as he was about to open his mouth to say something, her hands left his body and went straight to the buttons of her coat. Luffy fell into an attentive silence as Robin's thin fingers traveled dexterously down the lining of the cotton clothing, unfastening one button after another until she was able to shrug her shoulders smoothly out of the jacket, which dropped down around her hips. She was wearing a tight, short-sleeved shirt underneath, and paused only a moment to smile forebodingly into his eyes, before she grasped at the hem and pulled it up and over her head in one swift motion.

Her captain eyed her with quiet nervousness as the shirt left her shoulders and was tossed aside, sending her bra-covered bosom into a momentary sway until Robin reached behind her back to unfasten her pale undergarment.

For Luffy it was only the third time in his life seeing a woman's bared breasts, especially one as classically gorgeous and statuesque as his erudite _nakama. _And as if that weren't enough of a display, Robin stood up swiftly then (Luffy's eyes were drawn again to the distracting bounce of her gravity-flouting chest), her hands moving to unfasten the buttons of her taut jeans, then inserting thumbs into the waistline of both pants and undergarment and pulling them down to her ankles to reveal, in one graceful movement, the entire length of her slender legs and his first glimpse of the mysterious triangular pinkness between her thighs.

Luffy balked at the sight of Robin's exposed curves. Unwittingly, they summoned to mind his very first encounter with the nude female form, long relegated to the archives of his subconscious.

* * *

_Hopping to and from each leg, the slap of his wooden sandals against the cold stone floor echoing through the passageways of the Dr. Kureha's castle high atop the snow-capped peaks of Drum Island, Luffy clutched at his bladder and whined into the locked wooden door before him. _

"_Naamiiiii!" He groaned. "How long are you going to be in there? I really need to go!" _

_He raised a fist and pounded it against the door again._

"_You idiot! Don't tell me that!" He heard Nami's muffled shout over the sound of running water from behind the barrier. "What makes you think I want to hear that!?" _

"_But Nami! Its true! I'm about to burst." Luffy complained, leaping from side to side with comical light-footedness and then starting to pound his head against the oak surface. _

"_Gross! I told you, keep that to yourself!" His recently ill _nakama_ barked back at him, "Anyway, I'm about to take a bath. Just find some other place to go!_

"_Naaamiii!" _

_He lingered there hopefully for another moment more, but when she didn't answer, he grumbled with frustration and sprinted off down the hallways in search of another bathroom._

_After a few turned corners, and unsuccessfully tried doorknobs, he found himself outside the open door to the laboratory of the furry, antler-headed physician, Tony-Tony Chopper, who stood atop a chair at his desk examining a liquid culture in a glass vial. _

"_Oi! Monster-san!" Luffy interrupted, "Is there another bathroom around here? Nami's in the other one and I'm about to go in my pants!" _

_The diminutive furball of a medicine man scoffed gruffly. He had only known this pirate two days, but already the human acted like they were on familiar terms, as though he hadn't spent half the first day trying to capture and eat Chopper._

"_Stupid human!" He yelled back at the red-vested pirate without turning around. "There's only one bathroom in this wing. The rest are frozen shut in the other parts of the castle. You'll just have to wait until your _nakama's_ finished."_

"_EH!?" Luffy cried frantically, hands still cradling his groin, before dashing back down the hall to the toilet entrance. _

"_Nami! There's nowhere else! Let me – " He trailed off as, upon banging his fist against the door, the entry swung open, letting a billow of steam escape from the room into the hallway._

"_Nami?" Luffy called hesitantly into the obscuring clouds of vapor, before stretching his neck around the corner. Waving aside the fog, he saw after a few seconds, that the spacious floor-recessed stone bath within was empty and concluded that Nami must've finished quickly. _

"_Yosh!" He sighed with relief, and darted inside, kicking the door closed behind him, but not bothering to check if it shut completely. As he darted by the still water-filled basin, failing to wonder why Nami hadn't drained it yet, he passed the partial slate wall separating it from the toilet on the other side, a low-lying one-person granite seat depressed into the wall, with a hole carved in the middle. Luffy wasted no time audibly relieving himself and then, finishing up his business and about to leave, had just the presence of mind to remember Sanji's outrage the first time he tried to go straight from the bathroom to the dining table without washing his hands, and stopped in front of the small adjacent sink to run water and soap over his palms. _

_It was while he was washing up that he heard the bathroom door shut with a resounding thud and, moments later, someone's soft, bare footsteps on the stone floor. Switching the faucet off, and furrowing his brow as he wondered who had just walked in, he searched quickly and in vain for a cloth to dry his hands on, deciding then to step back into the bath area to look for one. He got there just in time to see Nami's bare backside slip smoothly into the steaming bathwater, which was deeper than he had realized and, when she crouched down, reached all the way to her delicate shoulders. _

"_Oh, Nami. You're still taking a bath?" Luffy said suddenly as he walked out of the haze to the side of the basin. _

_Nami's head jerked towards him at the sound of his voice, and she shrieked with shock at his unannounced appearance._

"_LUFFY!" She screeched lividly, sinking lower into the water till she was covered up to her chin. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?! WHEN DID YOU GET THERE?!" _

"_Eh?" Luffy frowned indifferently at her embarrassed surprise. "I told you, I needed to use the bathroom."_

"_I thought I told you to go somewhere else! Can't you see I'm taking a bath here?" She retorted angrily._

"_Chopper said there wasn't anywhere else. Besides, when I knocked on the door it was open. I thought you were done."_

"_I left because I forgot to bring a change of clothes! Obviously I wasn't done, it hasn't even been three minutes, you idiot! Don't lie, Luffy, you came to peek on me didn't you?!" She demanded with irate suspicion. _

"_Peek?" Luffy gave her a bewildered blink "At what? I didn't know you were coming back." He spotted her towel then, folded in a neat rectangle at the edge of the bath._

"_Sure you didn't. I'm sure it was just an accident." Nami pouted with disbelieving sarcasm from the water's surface._

"_Ne, Nami, can I borrow that towel?" He replied, ignoring her. "My hands are wet." He strode over to the corner of the bath and reached for the cloth._

"_No, of course you can't! Don't just grab my stuff!" Nami shouted furiously, getting up halfway out of the water to strangle him, before she recalled her indecency, and shrank back into the scalding water, red-faced._

_Luffy paid no attention to her as he seized the fabric and toweled his hands dry before dropping it back to the stone tile surface in a crumpled heap._

"_Yosh. That's better." He nodded with a grin before heading towards the door, "Okay, enjoy your bath, Nami, I'll see you later!"_

"_Wait, you asshole!" She called after him, staring incensed at the confused and impatient look he offered her, as though he was unaware of what an inconsiderate jerk he had just been, and actually thought _she_ was inconveniencing _him_._

"_You're actually going to barge in here in the middle of my bath, use my towel, leave it in a pile, and then just waltz right out of her? You ass!" She growled at him._

"_Eh? But I didn't barge in, I told you, I jus –" He disputed, but she cut him off instantly._

"_JUST SHUT UP AND PICK IT UP, YOU IDIOT!" She shouted at him._

"_Hmmm... Fine then... I don't get why you're you so mad, Nami." He griped meekly, as if she was being unreasonable, and he strode back over to retrieve the discarded towel._

"_Just fold it properly!" She ordered. _

_Luffy did as he was told, albeit clumsily, and placed the folded towel back at the edge of the bath. "Good?" He grinned, without waiting for an answer, and started heading back towards the door._

"_Hold it right there, you!" Nami commanded, clearly not finished. "Come back here!"_

"_Ehhh?" Luffy froze just before the exit and turned to face her with a slighted scowl. "What'd I do now?" He asked, making his way reluctantly back over. _

"_Don't just walk away! I'm not done with you yet!" She snapped at him._

"_Awwww..." _

_He sat down unwillingly on a short wooden stool next to the bath, wearing the look of a child being put on time-out as he faced his navigator's head, hovering above the reflective surface of the water. _

_Nami narrowed her eyes at his attitude and then asked,_

"_You swear you didn't come in here to peek on me, Luffy?"_

"_Hmmm? I promise, Nami! Like I said, I just needed to pee. Why would you peek on someone taking a bath, anyway?" He asked with a mystified look that was so in character for him that she could actually believe it. _

_Finally she seemed to relax visibly, and lifted herself up slightly in the water, till her underarms were just above the surface, approaching closer to the edge of the bath and smirking smugly at him._

"_Well, I guess I can believe that of a _baka_ like you. Sometimes I wonder if you even know what the difference between a man and a woman is." She teased._

"_Hey, what's that's supposed to mean?" He protested, realizing she was insulting him, if not exactly how. "Of course I know that..." He said, gesturing to his chest with a pair of open, cupped palms as he started to reply, "Women have boo –"_

"_Just stop talking, Luffy." Nami interrupted before he could finish, face-palming at his complete absence of tact. _

_Her captain fell obediently silent, and she looked up at him for a moment, sighed, and seemed to decide something then. With an air of affected resignation, she finally said, slowly,_

"_Well...since you're already here... And since I still haven't had the chance, since we got here, to thank you for saving me... I suppose you can help me out. Hand me my towel, Luffy." _

"_The one I just folded?" Luffy asked confused, but did as he was told._

"_Now turn around." Nami directed. _

"_Eh?" Luffy said, but stood up and obeyed wordlessly. After he faced the opposite wall of the room he heard the sound of movement in the water, followed by a dripping noise, as Nami stood up all the way in the bath and shuffled mysteriously behind him for a moment._

"_Okay. You can turn around now, Luffy." She spoke afterwards._

_As the young pirate captain whirled back, expecting her to have donned her towel again, he saw that his still-naked navigator had taken actually a seat right near the side of the bath, on a stone bench that lined the basin's edge, under the surface of the water. She was facing away from him, with her legs still submerged, but her whole bare backside was plainly visible, even amidst the humid haze of steam. _

_Luffy stared at the smooth, peach-colored sinuousness of her figure, still slick with wetness, thin trails of water leaving the soaked strands of orange hair plastered against her neck, and travelling down the channel of leanness flanking her spine. She turned her head back to him over her shoulder as she encouraged him to come closer._

"_Come on, sit down already." She said with casual impatience._

"_Oi, Nami...what do you want me to do?" Luffy asked, approaching with caution, and returning to the wooden stool, upon which his head was slightly above hers. He could see now that she was hugging the partially folded towel to her chest to cover her otherwise exposed bosom. _

"_Like I said, this is me repaying you for what you did. I need someone to wash my back. You can have the honor." She said, with a tone of playful banter, as she reached one arm back to him over her shoulder, and handed him a bar of soap._

"_How is this payback? This just seems like a chore to me. Can't you pay me back in meat?" Luffy objected._

"_Don't complain!" She rebuked, "There's no amount of meat that would satisfy you anyway. And even if you're too much an idiot to realize it, this is a much better reward than food. If it were Sanji, he'd be dying with gratitude. So just get started already, _baka_."_

_Luffy sulked under his breath for a moment longer, but eventually leaned forward on his seat and raised the bar of soap to her bare back. He could see now that the bathwater went only up to her tailbone, leaving everything but a heart-shaped halo around the top of her absurdly round behind exposed to him. His eyes traveled up from there, across the narrowing of her waist, whose edges widened in a pleasing approach to her upper torso. On either side of this, the abundant swell of her towel-flattened breasts peered just visibly between her upper arms. _

_Ignoring the uncomfortable feeling he experienced at that moment, Luffy pressed the bar of soap dutifully against her back and began scrubbing up and down vigorously. He felt Nami recoil with surprise a moment._

"_Ah! Luffy! Jeez, not so rough, moron." She criticized irritably. _

"_Oh. Gomen, Nami. I've never done this before." Luffy changed pace to slower, longer strokes up and down the length of her spine._

"_Its alright." Nami said forgivingly, sounding suddenly more diffident. "That's good now, actually." She lapsed into a long silence after that._

_Luffy, for his part, said nothing either while he rhythmically slid his hand back and forth over her skin, and otherwise only shifted periodically on his stool, searching for a position that mitigated the constricting discomfort of his denim shorts, of which he was now acutely aware in the awkward quiet. _

"_Ne, Luffy?" Nami said at one point, her eyes closed as she reveled in the slippery massage of Luffy's sliding movements, all of her earlier levity seemingly gone in that moment, replaced by a shy, soft-spoken, tenor._

"_Mmmm?" Luffy acknowledged wordlessly._

"_I know I acted like I was joking just now...but... I really do want to thank you again. Properly. Dr. Kureha told me what you did to get me here. Climbing by hand all the way up this mountain, in the middle of a blizzard...carrying me AND Sanji both... all by yourself?" Her voice became hushed at the end, as if she still couldn't believe the improbable feats of endurance her captain was constantly demonstrating. _

"_Anyway, I don't know how you managed to do something that crazy... but... I'm really grateful. Apparently I wouldn't have lived more than another two days if it hadn't been for you... so... thank you. Again, Luffy. For being such a reliable _nakama_." She swiveled her head back to him to meet his eyes, trying to convey the sincerity of her meaning._

_Luffy grinned at her._

"_You're feeling better now though, right Nami? I'm just glad you're okay. You're our precious navigator after all." _

"_Yeah...but I wouldn't be okay if it weren't for you. Even when I was unconscious with my fever, I think I was able to hear your voice calling out to me from the darkness. You kept telling me to hold on, that we were almost there. Anyway, it comforted me. Gave me strength. I wouldn't have made it without that, I think." She offered him a heartfelt smile._

"_How many times do you plan on saving my life, anyway?" She added, with a small laugh._

"_Shishishi!" Luffy beamed at her, "As many as I have to, of course. You're my _nakama_, Nami. You can always count on me to protect you." _

_She laughed once more "Well, I suppose I can take it out of your debt to me. But even with that, you're still deep in the red. Guess I'll have to keep sticking around you if I ever want to get my money back." She joked, her earlier light heartedness returning._

_Just then, Sanji's flattering voice echoed faintly through hallway and past the closed bathroom door._

"_Nami-swaaaaan, dearest! Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes! Please look forward to a revitalizing meal!"_

_Nami smiled at Luffy after hearing that._

"_Well...you heard him. I guess I should give you a chance to get a bath in before dinner too. I'm glad we could talk though." _

_As she said this she placed her towel aside, and moved back into the bath, immersing herself briefly past her head to rinse off the soap, before she stood suddenly upright, wiping her soaked hair out of her eyes, and turning to face him in all her unabashed splendor. Rivulets of bathwater glistened in the light as they trickled down the curves of her body, running between the roundness of her breasts, down her sides, collecting slightly in her navel. Luffy stared mutely as they drained down to the trimmed, elegant line of pale orange fuzz sitting just below her pelvis. His eyes were led to her exposed womanhood, framed by a fetching rectangle of negative space between her upper thighs and the water. If she seemed shy anymore about his watchful gaze, she hid it well behind a confident, knowing smile as she rewrapped her towel unhurriedly around her body._

"_Nami..." Luffy said dumbly as she stepped lightly over the stone lip beside her captain, and dried her feet momentarily on the absorbent bath rug. One hand holding up the hem of her towel, she slipped her feet into her sandals and retrieved her untouched pile of folded clean clothes. _

"_Anyway, thanks for back scrub. Bath's all yours, Luffy." She said, crouching beside her still-seated captain. "Oh, and, um..." She added, pausing to place her fingers under his chin and plant a light, chaste kiss upon his cheek. "Your real reward for saving me..." She seemed to find the startled look in his eyes very amusing, and she smiled one last time, before standing swiftly and walking quickly out the door._

"_See you at dinner." She called back over her shoulder as she shut the bathroom entrance behind her, leaving a bewildered Luffy alone._

_The slow-headed pirate captain sat in silence for a moment trying to make sense of what had just happened, and why he felt so strange at that moment. Finally coming to when he realized that he probably could use the bath Nami had suggested, he stood up to start taking his clothes off, confronting, as he did, something he hadn't seen in years. _

_Looking down in consternation at the pyramidal protrusion of fabric between his legs he realized the source of his earlier discomfort, which had been concealed while sitting, but was almost painful now that he was standing upright._

Not this again. _He thought with confusion as he tried carefully to take his shorts off without touching himself. _Where did you even come from?_ He wondered with a sigh and finished removing his clothes. Lowering himself into the now lukewarm water, he began employing the same strategy he had used for years to deal with these rare incidences: leave everything alone until it went away by itself. _

* * *

Two years later, Luffy again found himself at a loss, as the same uncomfortable pressure in his lower body seemed to be returning with a vengeance. He tried his best to force his eyes upon hisRobin's face, as though still wrestling with guilty reservations about staring at the uncovered female beauty before him. But she seemed to notice his deflected gaze, and offered him a reassuring smile.

"Luffy..." she murmured softly to him, "Its okay. Please... I want you to look at me."

The inexperienced pirate captain could feel his heated blood rushing to his face in a way he had only ever experienced before after one too many drinks.

"Robin...are you sure this okay?" He asked hesitantly.

She moved quickly closer then, sitting back beside him on the cushioned bench, offering him the most genuine smile she could.

"Please, Luffy. There's no one else I want to see me like this." She pleaded, taking his chin in her fingers and turning his averted eyes back to her.

Luffy shivered uneasily as his gaze was redirected back at Robin's unclothed body. But he forced his eyes away from her face and made them absorb the fantastic sight of her uncovered, pallid curves, the ideal, implausible proportions of her hips and waist and bust, the absurdly unblemished pallor of her lovely skin, and the delicate pink slit of her modesty, crowned by a tiny, well-groomed line of fine black hair. By the time had seen everything, he found himself unable to pull his stare away.

For her part, the naked goddess was left shivering with self-consciousness as the man she loved so much that it felt like a kind of insanity eyed her nude form with an un-interpretable speechlessness. The last two decades since her pubescence had long instilled in her an acceptance, and even involuntary assumption of, her own physical appeal to the opposite sex. She could never really recall doubting, before this moment, that another man might find her attractive. Now she watched Luffy's silent evaluation with a brimming uncertainty that made her quiet breathing shallow, filled her with trembling nervousness.

"Ne, Luffy... Will you say something...please? Do you like... how I look?" she asked, aching with insecurity.

Luffy seemed to struggle with the concept of spoken words, as if he suddenly found the extent of his vocabulary woefully unmatched to his circumstances.

"Robin... you...I...uh...I don't know what to say..." His words died pathetically in his throat.

Fortunately, the recipient of his meager compliments seemed to receive his words well, beaming happily at his inarticulate apprehension, as though he had extolled her beauty in the most honest way possible. The last of her reservations vanished, and she pressed close to him, face and figure alike, and laid continuous insistent kisses upon him for minutes afterwards.

At length, she began to gasp out a few words during brief interludes for air.

"Luffy... Please... I want you to touch me..." Her quiet request was drenched with desire, and Luffy gulped as he asked unsurely.

"Um...touch you...touch you where, Robin?"

"I told you," she panted into his mouth, "Anywhere. Anywhere you want." She took his hands by the wrists, placing one on her shoulder and looking into his eyes as she guided the other palm to her sternum.

"Can you feel that? My heartbeat?"

Luffy nodded slowly, amazed by the rapid pulse beneath her warm skin.

"The reason it's so fast... that's because of you." She murmured. "That's how excited I am... when I think about you touching me... so... please..."

This was the last motivation Luffy needed before obliging her. He lifted his hands and placed them delicately around her the warmth of her breasts. Robin drew a sharp intake of breath at his contact but remained still.

"Amazing..." He whispered, as his mind reeled with the indescribable feel of her yielding flesh. He had never felt anything like her before, this inimitable blend of firmness and softness, the heat of her smooth skin. _No wonder_, he realized then, _no wonder_ _most guys seemed so interested in them. _ He had never understood before this moment.

His hands began to move on their own, as if his inexperienced brain were forming new neural connections with every second, in a frantic attempt to comprehend the completely novel sensations. Shifting his fingers back and forth across the supple roundness, he marveled at the texture and feel of her now swollen nipples, noticing that Robin's breathing grew heavier with his touch. Unable to resist any longer, he gave both soft mounds a slow, firm squeeze, captivated by the way her body gave under his handling, but he hesitated at the sound of Robin's sudden gasp, worried he might've gone too far.

"Ah! Luffy! Yes... like that... more... please." She said, leaning into his caress with her eyes closed, and putting his doubts quickly at ease.

Emboldened, Luffy continued, his instincts kicking in as he started to become closely aware of Robin's reactions to his various massages. He soon had a sense of just how firm was enough, and quickly made good use of his discovery that a gentle pinch or twist of her nipples was enough to send her into a fit of audible groans, until she eventually looped her arms around his neck again, pushing her form onto his in a spell of wanton kisses.

"Mmm! Luffy! God, more, please!" She huffed against his lips.

Luffy indulged, kissing back without thinking as his hands began to run unchecked all over her, grasping at whatever curves and warmth they could find. She was hot to the touch wherever he placed his fingers, and he floundered across the length of her back, over the smooth flatness of her stomach, clutching at the silken warmth of her thighs, plundering the impossible substance of her rounded hips and bottom.

By now she was standing aggressively astride him, her chest pressing up against his clavicle, her mouth planted wetly over his, but breaking away often to kiss wildly at his chin and cheek, neck and collarbone. The bottom half of her ground slightly against the now unbearable pressure in his groin, as her hands roamed wildly beneath his shirt – running across the hardness of his shoulders and torso, exploring the muscled ridges of his back – before tugging the thin red cloth entirely off his body.

"Robin..." Luffy wondered open-eyed at her, and she responded only by moaning into his neck, before her hand slid down the grooves of his abdomen, slipping boldly under the waistline of his shorts.

"Mmm!" Luffy grunted as her fingers found his swollen arousal, wrapping suddenly around his throbbing length. "Robin! What are you - ?" He hissed with surprise, and felt her pause, pulling back from his lips suddenly to look searchingly into his eyes.

"I'm sorry! Is it not okay, Luffy? I know I'm getting a little carried away, but...I really wanted to touch you." She sounded contrite as she asked, "I just... want to make you feel as good as I can. You trust me, don't you?"

Luffy could hardly think straight with the strain in his pants, the electric feel of her still coiled around his stiffness. Ultimately, the look in her eyes, almost begging him to let her continue, made him nod.

"Eh...I trust you, Robin. But...it feels weird... I've felt this before...but not this strong... Its like... I'm on fire down there." He tried to explain.

She tried to reassure him,

"That's okay. That's natural. That's why I want you to trust me. If you let me, I can help with that feeling. It'll be new for you...but I think...I think you'll really like it by the time I'm done."

She examined his face one last time,

"So...Can I keep going, Luffy?"

He acquiesced with another nod, and a moment later, heard himself groan as her hand encircled his length again in a slow sliding grip.

"Robin..."He rasped her name, and she leaned forward to connect her lips to his again as she continued her strokes.

_This is too much..._ he thought, unaware that his _nakama _was just getting started. She released him for a moment, and slipped her hands back out of his shorts, but only long enough to unzip them.

Luffy watched her tensely as she grasped them at his waist, just long enough to look askance at him. As soon as he offered his gesture of consent, she kneeled before him and pulled the cloth down to his ankles, providing him palpable relief from the constriction he'd suffered for minutes now.

As the whole of him sprang forth in front of her face, he noticed with some insecurity, Robin's astounded stare.

"My god...Luffy" She seemed to swallow with trepidation and glanced up at his face to see him looking nervously back at her.

"What? What is it?" He asked of her reaction.

"Its just...I've just never... seen one this big before."

"Is that good or bad?" He questioned unsurely.

She stared, unanswering, at his imposing appendage – appearing to her like it might burst at any moment – as if unable to look away now, before smiling faintly.

"_I'm _certainly okay with it..." She said, though he had the strange impression that she was somehow more uncertain about that than she claimed. Much of her earlier confidence seemed suddenly subdued, as if the sight of him had intimidated her, somehow.

"Ne...Robin. Are you sure its okay?" He asked, concerned with her faltering resolve.

Instead of answering, her face assumed a determined look, and she waited no longer before she grasped him firmly at the base and shocked Luffy to the core by opening her mouth and sliding the flatness of her tongue up the whole span of him in one deliberate motion.

Her captain cringed instantly at the unfathomable sensation of her slickness against his skin. Never in his life had imagined that someone might do such a thing.

"Robin...what are you...?" He tried to ask, but she cut in.

"I told you...don't worry, Luffy...just let me take care of everything and I promise you'll feel good." She said, her calm voice belying the deep blush of her face as, without another word, she parted her lips to lick wetly at his tip, before stretching her jaw wide and plunging her mouth over his whole head, taking as much of his span as would fit inside her.

Luffy's mind went white and blank in an instant, his knuckles clawing at the bench cushion beneath him, eyes clenching tight. He couldn't believe this sensation existed, the cramped hot wetness of the inside of Robin's mouth as it enveloped the upper half of his aching length overwhelming all reason. The feel of her moist tongue cushioning beneath was surpassed only as she relaxed her jaw, pushed herself further down his length, until he felt the end of him clearly pressing against the back of her throat.

Opening his eyes then to look down at her, he beheld her face, lips agape and flush against his skin, the first of seven inches of at him at least vanished impossibly into her mouth. He wondered with guilty astonishment, somewhere in the back of his mind, how she could even fit so much of his girth in such a small space, saw her swallow with the difficulty of it, her expression slightly uncomfortable.

"Robin...! You don't ha –" But he was unable to finish, forced instead to suppress another moan, as he watched her begin slide her head along his shaft, her cheeks collapsing as he felt her throat and tongue tighten around him in a vacuum pressure that dispelled words from his mouth. Then she was moving, back and forth with steady persistence.

For a second or two, the unreal ecstasy was almost manageable, until Robin's pace started to increase, her movement expanding as she grew more comfortable, so that she rose all the way to his tip and then plummeted smoothly back down, even further than before, until everything but the last few inches of him was snugly inside her again, her lips never breaking their hermetic seal for a moment, the sloppy sounds escaping them now irredeemably vulgar.

This he could withstand only a moment before the heat in his loins became intolerable, the scorching wet tightness of her throat impossible to endure, and he growled his last words, through gritted teeth,

"Robin! That's too much... I'm about to... " But she refused to heed him, and he was unable to end his sentence before the searing pressure that had been building exploded out of him all at once. His hand reached for her unthinkingly, seizing the back of her head and pulling her roughly closer, his hips thrust involuntarily forward to force his massive size even further against her throat as he felt a white hot liquid fire bursting forth from his groin and draining endlessly into her mouth. Robin was clearly caught off guard, her eyes widening with astonishment again as heat of him flooded down her throat, hands just barely catching herself against the edge of the bench, bracing against Luffy's sudden downward force.

Lost in the bliss of the ultimate release, he was vaguely aware of the feeling of Robin clenching around him multiple times as she was required to quickly to gulp down as much of Luffy's thick, blistering essence as she could to avoid choking. But she could endure only a few seconds, before her gag reflex kicked in, and Luffy became suddenly aware that she was pushing back against his hand. He released her immediately, his length slipping out of her mouth still mid-spray, and haphazardly covering her coughing face with the rest of his climax.

Luffy stared horrified at the sight of his soiled _nakama's _face, flushed and exhausted, as she wheezed and coughed at his feet, and began to apologize immediately for his unintentional coercion.

"_Gomen, Robin!_ I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to...I lost control for a moment and I –"

She rose swiftly to her feet to sit astride his lap and lay a silencing finger on his mouth.

"Its fine. You didn't anything wrong, Luffy. I was a little surprised at the end, for sure but I suppose that's what I get for taking things so fast your first time..." She smiled at him warmly, wiped away the mess from her lips and face and then kissed him with a saltiness on her lips that he realized probably came from himself, until she broke the kiss to ask teasingly of him.

"Ne...what did you think though, Luffy? You seemed enjoy it, at least from my point of view."

Luffy swallowed stiffly as he answered with honesty.

"Amazing, Robin... Its just like you said. More than I ever imagined. I've never felt anything even close to that incredible." He admitted, adding tentatively afterwards, "Thank you."

She giggled against his neck as she answered,

"You don't have to thank me Luffy. I'm just glad you enjoyed it. I told you, I really want you to feel good."

Then she asked, with that same playful tone with which she had started.

"So, do you want to keep going?"

Luffy gawked at her.

"More? There's even more than that?"

She laughed again, and said in a sultry, whisper.

"Yes, Luffy. I was hoping you'd touch me more. And... maybe use your mouth, too?"

"Um, sure." He agreed unsurely, "If that will make you feel good too."

He returned quickly to the task of reapplying his newly acquired techniques, his hands fondling her elastic breasts once more, pinching softly at her nipples, which turned swiftly stiff again at his touch. Soon he heard once more the music of her satisfied groans and breathless gasps as her hands migrated to his hair and began grabbing at his locks.

"Mmm! Luffy!" Robin breathed urgently, "Please... your mouth... I want you to taste me too."

He obliged her, lowering his face to her chest, and attempting to let his intuition guide him as he alternated kissing and licking wetly at her plump parts, squeezing at the same time, and listening closely for her responses, almost of all of which seemed to be intensifying murmurs of his name, and incoherent moans. She gave a small start and a precious little mewl as he took one the tip of one breast into his mouth and began an alternating attack, sucking and then licking at her areola, taking her reactions as license to even bite gently down against the nipple with a soft tug, pleased to feel her arch her back into his face and yelp with satisfaction.

"Aaaah! Oh god, yes, Luffy!" She cried, pulling his head against her, and then grabbing at one of his wrists. "Please, more! Touch me... touch me here!"

She guided his hand insistently down to the heat between her legs, pressing it up against her entrance. Luffy was stunned by the feel of her there, all scorching heat, and by now, drenched wetness, and he let her direct his hand as she rubbed his fingers against her, focusing it against the hardened nub at her apex, all the while grasping onto his neck andmashing her hips helplessly against his rhythmic strokes.

"Mmm! Mmmm!" She was unintelligible at this point, and became more so as she pressed two of Luffy's fingers, now slick with her juices, into the warm, wet embrace of the soft walls inside her. At this point, the movement of her hips seemed to take on a life of its own, and she held Luffy's hand in place by the wrist and braced herself against one of his shoulders, her upper-body tilted up against him and her face pressed into the other shoulder, panting blindly into his collarbone as she rode Luffy's fingers to a wordless, shattering orgasm.

Luffy started with the surprise of her insides contracting in sudden spasms, and the rush of steaming wetness that gushed abruptly from her gap and drenched his hands. The speechless whimper she issued with clenched eyes as she rode the last aftershocks of her climax – her hips twitching and her whole body shuddering with what he realized must be the same unspeakable pleasure he had just experienced – he found strangely thrilling, noticing then, that his earlier stiffness in the groin had returned.

Eventually, Robin finally pulled her tightness away, and collapsed against him. Pushing him flat on his back against the bench, she sprawled over his body, huffing with a spent and speechless satisfaction while she tried for several seconds to catch her breath.

Luffy did nothing during this time except to attempt delicately to shift his reemerged erection out from where it had landed between her legs, as the feel of its tip poking unintentionally against the firmness of her behind was already driving him slightly mad.

Robin, for her part, felt his careful adjustment beneath her and seemed then to be drawn out of her euphoric haze, at least enough to finally lift her head and look into his face again, with a lazy satisfaction.

"Mmm...sorry again, Luffy. I kind of got lost for a moment, too. That was amazing though." She thanked him, giggling happily as she added. "I haven't cum like that in so long I can't remember."

Luffy smiled at her, trying his best to conceal the resurging throb of his groin.

"Yosh. I'm happy I could make you feel good too, Robin." He replied sincerely. But she frowned as she lifted herself off his body slightly, and peered down between the two them at his revisiting arousal, visible through the gap between her parted legs.

"But it seems the rest of you is already waiting for the next part? I guess I shouldn't be surprised by how quickly you recover." She grinned.

Luffy stared dumbly at her again,

"Next part? What could possibly come after all that?" He asked incredulously.

"Luffy..." She kissed him and then laughed into his lips. "All of that was just foreplay. This is the real part of making love." She explained. "This is where people become one with each other. Its what I wanted to do with you from the very beginning."

"Foreplay?" He tried the unfamiliar word out.

"Eh, see how hard you still are?" She whispered as she stroked briefly at him, pleased to hear that gruff groan of his she enjoyed so much. "Can you feel me? How wet I am?" she asked as she guided his hand to her soaked sex. "That's our bodies telling us they want to be connected." She paused to kiss him again and then asked, "So...is it okay if I put it inside now, Luffy?"

"Inside? You're going to put me...inside of you...?" her captain seemed boggled by the thought, which only amused her more.

"Eh, if its okay? Please Luffy..." She begged, "I need you so badly."

Luffy hesitated only a moment, considering the fact that every one her suggestions so far this evening, though unimaginable at first, had turned out to be the most amazing experience of his life.

"Okay then. Please teach me everything, Robin."

Robin beamed and pressed her lips against his one more time, and then she was guiding his length to her opening, placing the tip of him right against the slippery heat of her outer folds. She waited just long enough to ensure they were aligned, pushing him slightly into her warmth with a soft gasp. Then she seemed to steel herself, and hold her breath before she plunged the rest inside in one swoop, a squeal of strained rapture tearing from her mouth as her hips came to rest atop his hilt and her body arced against the sudden penetration. She sat astride him for several moments with eyes clenched in a slight grimace, biting the knuckles of one hand, clamping the edge of the bench in white-knuckled desperation with the other, her entire body quivering from the hips up as she struggled with the barely manageable size of him.

Luffy was alarmed by her pained reaction, but had been rendered voiceless by the sudden mind-shattering grip of her taut insides. Somehow, it was even tighter than it had been in her mouth, the pressure around his circumference immediately and totally overwhelming.

"Robin..." He grunted desperately one hand clawing at her hips.

"Luffy..." She gasped back in a broken, strangled words, "You're...you're...too much... you're so big...inside me...it...it hurts..."

Luffy eyes shot open with dismay.

"Robin...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you... we should st –"

"No!" she cried emphatically, "No...no, its alright... I'm okay..." She tilted her head down slowly to face him, wincing as she shifted on his body. "I told you...I wanted this. This pain is nothing if it means I can be with you."

Bending forward at the waist to kiss him again, she grabbed both his hands and twined her fingers in his.

"I'm going to move now, Luffy" She warned, and then began to slide her hips slowly up and down his length, hissing softly with the soreness of the first several movements.

Luffy lost all ability to object as her searing tightness crushed him, squeezing out all rational thought.

"Robin..." He rasped with a desperation that made her name sound like a prayer.

_This...this is impossible... _He thought disjointedly. _Nothing could possibly feel like this..._

The hot pressure inside her was balanced precariously in some incomprehensible limbo between agony and ecstasy, and their hands gripped tighter at each other with every slow descent of her warmth around his stiffness.

The going remained slow for some time, Robin just barely able to handle taking him in with slow, deliberateness and frequent aching groans, Luffy exerting every fiber of his will into holding off the explosive heat he already felt piling up in his pelvis. Very gradually, though, her grip on his lower half seemed to acclimate, and the sliding of her hips settled into a smoother, more rhythmic sway. He was aware in a distant way, of how Robin's high-pitched grunts and pained groans began dissolving into pleased pants, as her walls relaxed somewhat around his length, allowing her to move more rapidly against him, and freeing her up to resume kissing his lips.

"Lu...Luffy...Mmm...This...this is it, Luffy..." She murmured, "This...is what I wanted...I love you...I love you so much."

Luffy, for his part, had fallen silent except for a heavy breathing through his nose, aware only of the press of his _nakama's _lip, grateful for how the painful squeeze of her had abated into an easy, wet friction, the now smooth sliding sensation of her heat against his groin making him feel as though they were melting into each other from the bottom up.

This new feeling was one he hoped could last forever: the back and forth of her hips, the weight of her thighs and buttocks striking against his pelvis, the obscene sounds of their moans and wetness mingling in the air, the taste of her mouth against his. After a few seconds though, it became clear that this would not be the case as Robin's pace seemed to intensify rapidly, her hands leaving his to brace herself against the wood of the seat, feminine gasps becoming more pronounced till her voice was raised in short, frantic whispers.

"Mm...mm...mm...Luffy...yes...yesss...yes...I'm going...I'm about to..."

Luffy didn't answer, his inhibitions blown away like balsa wood in the wind, at the sense of her amplified movements, his hips starting to drive upward in time with her rebounding impact, driving Robin likewise right over her edge...

"Oh god! Yes! Yes! Luffy! You're so deep! You're reaching so deep inside me! I can't...I'm going... I'm going to..." Was the last thing she said, all but shouted at him with a volume that could've easily been heard from outside the room by now.

"Me too...Robin...I feel it too..." Luffy growled back, understanding in the moment exactly what his partner meant, as though he was sure in that instant that they were feeling the exact same thing.

The teetered together precariously on the precipice of that burning hot bliss, and then reached their explosive peak simultaneously, Robin crying out as she felt Luffy's searing essence fill her up from inside. Luffy grunted with his hands gripping her sides and his body bent up into hers, the tightening of her convulsive climax squeezing the life right out of him.

His partner remained paralyzed and shivering over his hardness for a good several seconds, the waves of heat coursing through her body leaving her in a twitching mess. Then every muscle in her body seemed to go limp as she crumbled on top of him, covered in a sheen of perspiration, gasping for air.

Neither could be sure how long they spent slumped breathlessly against each other, bodies still entangled, wallowing in the intimate afterglow of their release. But eventually Luffy shifted beneath Robin's weight, pressing his face into her neck, inhaling deeply of the his _nakama's_ intoxicating scent_, _now colored faintly with an exerted sweat that was not at all unpleasant.

"Robin...?" He whispered into her hair.

"Mmm... yes, Luffy?" She responded dreamily, as if still not quite down from her place somewhere in the clouds.

"You were right again... That was definitely the most amazing part. I've never felt anything like that... I never even knew that was it was even possible to feel that way..."

She giggled euphorically into his cheek.

"Eh, Luffy. For me, too. I've done it before but...it never felt quite like that. I'm glad you enjoyed it, as well."

There was another long silence and then Luffy said, his hands moving with languid strokes across the warmth of her back.

"Also...I don't why but...I'm really sleepy all of a sudden." He mumbled, feeling his eyes droop.

He heard her laugh again, shifting her head beneath his chin to rest it against his shoulder.

"Well...that's not surprising. I'm pretty tired myself, after all that. " Her own hand traced idly up the crest of his abdominals. "And it _is_ pretty late by now. The sun will probably be up in a few hours... We should probably head back to our rooms soon..." She mumbled reluctantly against his chest.

Neither of them stirred, however, until Luffy, finally said, with a sleepy indolence.

"Ne, Robin...I'm tired...but...I don't really want to move either."

She sighed with agreement,

"Yes...I don't either...but..." She pushed her self slowly upright and got unsteadily to her feet. "Luckily for the both of us, I keep a pillow and blanket in this room for late nights."

She glided across the room to the hexagonal study at the center, one hand covering her modesty to avoid spilling the part of Luffy that was still leaking rather distastefully from her all over the floor. Luffy eyes trailed watchfully after her lithe form, still distractingly nude, mesmerized by the sight of so much of her flawless skin and the way parts of her toned curves moved enticingly with each step. She crouched next to the desk, and opened a cabinet door on its side, while Luffy's eyes widened with alarm as he felt himself twitching back to arousal at the sight of his nakama bent alluringly in front of the table.

_Again? _He thought, with disbelief. Deliberately, forcefully, he turned his head away from Robin back to the ceiling, concentrating on the sterile rectangularity of the wooden floorboards in an attempt to head off his resurging excitement.

Eventually he saw Robin straighten again from the corner of his eye, and make her way back to his side clutching a small throw pillow and a comforter in one arm, the other holding a box of tissues she had also retrieved from the cabinet.

She handed him the pillow and blanket with a smile, and Luffy sat up on his elbows to receive them, watching as she then removed several tissues from the box.

"_Gomen,_ Luffy." She said with an embarrassed look. "I wanted to clean myself off first." She said as she folded the paper into a neat square and dabbed at her messier parts until she was dry. She removed a few more as she sat down next Luffy, unaware that he was doing his best to focus on her face.

"Let me do you too, Luffy. We shouldn't leave any stains, if possible." She explained as she leaned over and wiped him slowly clean as well, while Luffy stared at the ceiling and tried to think about anything the brush of her touch against him.

Finally she finished and stood again.

"There, that should be alright." She said, crossing the room again to dispose of the soiled tissues.

Retuning to the bench and seating herself beside her captain, who was sitting fully upright now, she turned to face him and smiled.

"So, Luffy...are you still tired? Do you want to sleep here?" She asked hopefully.

Luffy grinned. "Sure. Here's fine."

"We just need to make sure we wake up early, before anyone finds us here." She pointed out. "Although, I doubt anyone will be in before breakfast. And I'm sure you won't miss that." She smiled teasingly.

_Breakfast,_ he thought with an unusual indifference. Somehow the pangs of attention-overriding hunger that usually came from merely hearing the word seemed less bothersome in that moment, as though the thorough contentment he was otherwise experiencing were somehow a balm for his stomach's itch.

"But... Robin... before we go to sleep... can we put our clothes back on, first? I don't think I'll be able to if we don't."

Robin laughed as she took his hand in hers and leaned her head into shoulder.

"Yes, that's probably a good idea, captain."

With that, they hurriedly gathered their clothes, strewn messily across the floor, and slipped on some layers, eventually reseating themselves. Luffy placed his hat deliberately to one side and Robin faced her captain then, and offered him another kiss, before handing him the pillow, and pushing him down flat upon the bench. At the same time, she stretched herself beside him and jerked the blanket over them into the air so that it billowed open and floated to rest covering their bodies. There was just enough width to the seat for them to lie side by side, facing one another, Robin placing her head against the crook of Luffy's outstretched arm – bent at the elbow and propped against the pillow – and curling up against the warmth of his core.

Gazing at his already falling eyelids, she smiled as she whispered her good nights to him.

"Ne, Luffy?"

"Mmm...?"

"Thank you, for tonight. It really was amazing. Hopefully we can do it again soon?"

Luffy smiled tiredly.

"Sure, that sounds great, Robin. Thanks for teaching me about mystery feelings... You're a really good teacher."

She laughed. "You're welcome, captain. Oh...and Luffy?"

"...Mmm...?"  
"I love you." She whispered at his mouth. "You don't have to say it back yet. I just wanted to say it one more time."

When she didn't hear him respond, she glanced up at his eyes again and saw that they were closed already. After listening to the slow rhythm his breathing had settled into, she concluded he must've fallen asleep.

_Oh well_... she thought with an amused smile, _there'll be time for that later. _

"Good night, Luffy."

She pecked softly at his lips one last time, and closed her eyes, unsurprised when a deep, satisfied sleep overwhelmed her almost immediately.

* * *

On the other side of the ship, in the darkness of the women's quarters, Nami's started awake from the uneasy slumber she had settled into only a few hours before. It took her a moment to realize where she was, curled under the covers of her bed where she had retreated almost immediately after...

_Shit..._ She thought, unhappily, as the memory of her recent encounter with her captain came flooding back. A part of her had been praying that the whole experience would fade away in the moments after she awoke, proving to be merely an unpleasant dream. But to her dismay, she could still recall the conversation clearly, cringing as she remembered her unacknowledged and aborted confession. A mortified frustration seized her as the image of Luffy wearing that infuriatingly clueless expression of his flashed into her mind, and she buried her heated face in her pillow.

Baka_, _baka_, _baka_! _She swore furiously, _He was such a bloody idiot!_

Then as now, however, another more reasoned voice in her head whispered to her a painful truth: that she was, in fact, being unfair. The truth was Luffy had been no more or less an idiot than he ever was. On the contrary, the only thing her captain had done wrong that night was to be the exact same Luffy he always was, without exception.

That was the thing about the leader of the Straw Hats: he was only ever exactly himself, his intentions only precisely what they appeared to be, his words meaning only what they said. _If she should blame anyone_, she thought with irritation, _it was her stupid self for falling so in love with such a moron_.

She removed her face from the pillow and cradled it tightly against her chest, telling herself that she wasn't pretending as though it were her captain's warm, fit body.

Still, unlike her closest friend and confidant, Nico Robin, she had long since abandoned any illusions about her feelings for Luffy. Having admitted freely to herself as far back as Cocoyashi island – during the three-day celebration of the fall of Arlong Park – that her affection for her savior savant was no longer just platonic, she was now filled with frustration that in all that time since she'd sat in front of Bellemere's grave and whispered to her mother's spirit about her newfound dreams and burgeoning crush, she seemed, in one respect, to have come no further with him. Sure, the countless life-or-death experiences she had endured (often unwillingly) at her captain's side had brought them as close as friends could be, and instilled in her an unshakeable faith in Luffy's strength and resolve. But when it came to the aspect of their relationship that had kept her up so many sleepless nights for the past two years she could not seem to get past this maddening standstill.

Nami was not a woman who tolerated the frustration of her ambitions well. Ten years spent roaming the East Blue, boldly and efficaciously robbing criminals blind to achieve one vital imperative, had taught her to believe strongly in her self-imparted license to seize the things she desired most. So why then, when it came to this idiot she loved so much, did she feel so stymied and powerless at every turn?

_It's his fault!_ She thought, angrily burying her face in her pillow again.

If only he weren't so utterly clueless! If only he'd had even a shred of common sense in his thick skull! Then she might not have to do all of the awkward work of making it clear to him. But the same voice of reason from earlier admonished her here, too, pointing out that Luffy's obliviousness, like almost every other facet of him, was something she absolutely adored about him as well. There was, truthfully, almost no single thing about her captain for which she didn't experience simultaneous extremes of infatuation and fury.

His goofy, unassuming grin could have her fawning inside one moment, and wanting to pull her hair out the next; his enormous strength was awe-inspiring when he used to easily diffuse dangerous situations or rescue her from harm, but it was the bane of her life when (more frequently) it led them headfirst into the very danger from which he had to save her; his childlike playfulness had sent her into fits of uncontrollable laughter before, only to then force her to beat him senseless, sometimes moments later. Even his sculpted, battle-scarred body – not to mention that damn crimson cardigan of his that did so little to cover it – was something she felt some ambivalence about, for though it wormed its way into her bedtime thoughts during nights of lonely arousal, it also had tendency to be ridiculously distracting when he stood too close her at the helm or bothered her during her map-sketching sessions. She blushed to admit, though, that this last point was definitely the part about him that troubled her the least.

Sighing helplessly to herself, she considered the pesky truth: that the real problem getting in the way of things was ultimately her pursuit of the same half-hearted strategy she'd employed since they'd first met. Even though she was always flirtatious hints and heavy innuendo when they were alone, she had been unwilling to deal with the recurring inadequacy of such banter to surmount Luffy's towering threshold of ignorance. Despite every smile of hers that he'd misread, every accidental brush of her body he'd shrugged off without pause, not to mention all the coy teases that had gone straight over his empty head, part of her still clung desperately to the notion that if she was just unsubtle enough or could find just the perfect hint to send his way, that eventually he'd have some romantic epiphany, see the light, and sweep her off her feet. That was a mistake, she realized now, after their previous conversation had literally taken her to the limits of how blunt she could be about her sentiments without pouncing on him then and there. And still she had failed to penetrate his wall of obliviousness.

She felt the same paralyzed hurt and humiliated tears creeping back as she recalled how passively he had received her declaration of love. It had been too difficult to remind herself, in that moment, who she was speaking to, or to avoid reading hidden meanings into his claims of ignorance. Instead she'd succumbed to the panic she'd felt at the time, heeding the voice that told her to retreat before he could do more damage to her heart. It had taken so much of her gradually accumulated courage just to reach the point of finally being totally honest with him that his misunderstanding had been impossible to believe.

_What could he possibly misunderstand about the words "I love you"?_ She had thought with angry disbelief. Could anyone, even Luffy, really be that dense? How could she be more explicit without resorting to physical assault?

But after only a few hours of sleep to distance herself from it all, she was now filled with that sinking realization that she hated admitting the most: that she had been wrong.

She had known Luffy too long, loved him too well, to be able to deny his honesty. It was easy to forget that the man was pretty much intrinsically incapable of lying, even to spare another's feelings, and that when he said he 'didn't know what she was talking about', it could not be construed as 'I don't feel the same way,' or 'stop talking about this', but could literally only mean that he had completely missed the meaning of her confession.

She realized guiltily that the signs had always been there, that her captain was essentially a constant in the romantic equation and her behavior toward him the only variable. She had been plugging the same number in over and over, hoping to get a different answer from him, and now, for the first time she had tried something new, gotten closer than ever before to finding out the truth, but then bailed out of fear at the first sign that things were going south. And now she had probably left him more confused than ever before, for she knew Luffy would be wondering what he had done to upset her, and probably blaming himself unnecessarily.

She should've seen it through, she saw now, should've understood how promising that moment had been. If she'd kept her wits about her she would've noticed the true extent of Luffy's romantic deficits and grasped that what had seemed like rejection was actually the perfect moment to charge unflinchingly forward and drive home with actions, rather than words, exactly what she meant when she said she loved him. That was the only way that someone like Luffy would ever understand, for she saw now that the word "love" really had no meaning to her captain except in terms of what he had experienced first hand: the bonds of friendship he shared with his crew, or the brotherly respect he had felt for his brother.

_I'll have to talk to him again..._ she realized with a grimace. As it was, things were only half-revealed. _Still_, she thought_, it didn't have to be right away_. She'd feel bad about letting Luffy stew in whatever turmoil she might have left him in last night, but she needed time to figure out what she should say and, more importantly, _do, _the next time she brought this up.

Sighing again and turning to glance at her roommates bed, Nami was surprised to see it still empty, Robin's sheets in the same disarray they'd been when she'd turned in.

_Had she not come back since last night? _She wondered curiously. She doubted the woman had returned and left again while she was still sleeping, so she assumed that she must've fallen asleep in the library again. It wouldn't be the first time it had happened, but it still wasn't common, and it made her wonder idly if her friend was dealing with something she didn't want to talk about... or even if she might be avoiding her.

This last was especially bothersome, for it reminded her of the one unspoken reason her fellow Straw Hat might have for avoiding her. Their mutual and conflicting affections for the same man were something that neither of them had ever acknowledged aloud, though from the way they avoided talking about their preferences in men (a topic she had explored at length with her only other close female friend and former crewmate, Vivi) it seemed impossible that they weren't both aware of it. She loved Robin dearly, but she couldn't deny having spent a non-trivial amount of time worrying about her relationship with their captain. The dreadful possibility occurred her at that moment of how Robin might've reacted if she had somehow witnessed, perhaps from fatefully aligned window, her advances with Luffy last night. It was an unsettling hypothetical explanation for both her roommate's absence upon her return to the room a few hours ago, and the currently empty state of her bed at what seemed, now that she looked out her window, to be mere minutes from dawn.

But she told herself that she was over thinking things, that her roommate had likely just been in the library the whole evening, that this was in no way uncommon, and that it would've been all but impossible for Robin to have spotted anything from there.

Peering at the soft glow slanting into the cabin, it occurred to her that Sanji would be up before too long to get a start on breakfast, an operation which took the better part of the morning when it involved catering the collective appetite of the entire Straw Hat Crew. Concluding that it was pointless to try and get back to sleep, she decided she should try to a get a few hours of sketching in before breakfast. It would give her a good excuse to visit the library and presumably seek out Robin. She was sure that after a few words with her friend she'd at least be able to put one of her doubts to rest.

Climbing out of bed, and showering hastily before changing into a clean set of clothes, she donned her sandals and slipped out into the fresh morning air, feeling better with each step. _Surely_, she told herself, _there was no way her best friend would be unhappy to see her_. And perhaps, it occurred to her for the first time, now might actually be the best moment for them to finally air this taboo subject openly for once. After all, she thought with growing confidence, she was sure their friendship could survive such a talk.

* * *

**Footnotes**: So there. Smut + minor plot development. The stage is set for some romantic conflict between characters. Stick around if you'd like to see what that is. Or if you like the idea of ridiculously overly-narrated threesomes between Luffy and his female crewmates. Reviews are, of course, appreciated. But if you're just here for some anonymous, fanfictional filth, well...I can condone that too...


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